I chose to take a trip to Schloss Ludwigsburg!
Ludwigsburg is a little town next to Stuttgart, that takes about 20 minutes to get to by train. When we went to the Mittelalterliches Burgfest on the weekend, we drove through Ludwigsburg and passed the enormous and beautiful looking 18th century castle. Since then, I just couldn't stop thinking about taking a trip there.
I had tried to get a small group of my friends together to all go, but it seemed that everyone had other plans or were ignoring my messages. Therefore, I felt adventurous and went on alone.
And I'm actually glad I did, because I was able to walk around at my own pace and see EVERYTHING.
Admission to the main castle, with 90 minute tour, the Keramik- and Modemuseum (ceramic and clothing museum) entrance, entrance to the Apartment of Carl Eugen (whoever that was- I never found out), tour of the little castle: Schloss Favorite, and ALL the gardens only cost 8 Euro for students.
I was extremely excited.
I quickly discovered that on Sundays and on feiertage (holidays) there is a giant market on the front garden are of the main castle, which unfortunately really obstructed the view, but was pretty neat. There were quite a few wine and ice cream stalls, as well as one selling fresh veggies and vegetable wraps for 2,50Euro, which I bought for lunch.
Anyway, as I briefly mentioned, the main castle tour was 90 minutes. Apparently it is one of the longest in all of Europe, totaling about 1 kilometer of ground covered. The castle itself is built more like a kind of fortress, with 2 large buildings one either end of a rectangular court, and along the sides are narrower passages, with a church on one side and a theater on the other.
It was really a lovely tour, but after a while all of the rooms started looking the same, and therefore boring. But in the same sense, the rooms began to hurt my eyes because everything was decorated in Baroke style. Lots and lots of golden ornaments on the walls, or in some rooms that had been "updated" in the late 1800s, the rooms were monochromatic in a muted red or green color. And just about all of them had the same layout! And many didn't seem to have a purpose. ... Stupid extravagant old rich people.
Arriving in Ludwigsburg. This is the street right outside the main station
fountain in the front garden of the schloss
front/side of the schloss
A fire pheasant! I'd never seen something like it before. So pretty!
The Eiskeller. This is where they would keep Eis back in the day. The inside of this hut has a big hole in the middle that goes down about 20 feet, and they would apparently leave or find ice there in the winter or something. (I skipped the audio explanation)
Back of the schloss
inside the main court yard
main building part of the schloss
Front of the schloss. I didn't know palm trees could survive here, even if it's for a shirt time.
Those umbrellas in the background were for some vendor of sorts at the market thing
front garden- and lawn ornaments sold by one market person
schloss favorite - the little castle behind and across the road from the main one
walking back to the main area
Anyway the best part of the whole day was exploring the back and side gardens.
The carefully landscaped gardens were quite a sight, but my favorite was actually the magical "Maecrchen Garten" I happened upon. It was clearly an area designed for children much more recently, with about 8 different life-size huts or diaramas depicting scenes from specific fairytales. These included: Rotkaeppchen (Litte red riding hood), Rapunzel, Ruempelstilzchen, Dornroeschen(Little Thorn-rose = Seeping beauty) Aschenputtel (Cinderella), one who's titel I always forget that is about 3 animals and is super popular in Bremen, and my favorite- Frau Hoelle [we read and discussed in my German Maerchen class a year ago] that set had a glass topped well, and when you looked into it, there was a tv screen at the bottom showing scenes from the story.
However, I will say that these little fairy tale displays did start to freak me out, because mostly all had animatronic-type figures, made in creepy looking German character style- specifically the Rumpelstizchen. He looked like a ventriloquist dummy, and so I didn't want to stop to watch the scene and just kept walking on.
This is a scene from Dornroeschen. The prince is looking in the window of the tower....
Doves! Because the doves help aschenputtel
Rumpelstilzchen
Ok there were a bunch of these silhouettes from various Marchen, but I have no idea what most of them are! Any guesses?
And here is a beautiful view of the side landscaping, and there were a few of those pink trees that were gorgeous!
GARDENS
ReplyDeleteThat question mark and exclamation point set was pretty surprising to see there! It seemed sort of modern-whimsy instead of old-world-swirly.
The Bremen story is called Bremen Town Players.
Those silhouettes are of just elves being elves I think? (That elf-riding-a-goat-with-scissors is my favorite and I hope he does have a story). As well as Puss in Boots bowing with his hat. It looks like his boots have spurs!
GARDENS!