At last, Jane has a day off, so we plan a field trip out to the Palace Gardens at Schwetzingen. Schwetzingen was the summer palace of Prince Elector Karl Theodor (one of the founders of Heidelberg University.) Jane had gotten the full skinny on where to park for free, etc., from one of her friends.
We picked up Mike and drove over to Schwetzingen - it was a perfect and beautiful sunny day. We parked on a side street a couple of blocks from the center of town, and then walked up to where the Palace is. It turned out there was a little Markt there. There were fresh vegetables and fruits, herbs, teas, and...one guy had the most beautiful fish! It turned out you could choose a piece of fish and he would cook it up right then and there, so we ordered breakfast. It was the most delicious piece of fish I've ever had, and we stood around a table and wolfed it down.
We went over to the Palace and bought tickets to walk through the gardens. We met the most friendly and garrulous guard at the gate - he was one some kind of happy pills and I want some. He couldn't have been more friendly and nice.
We entered the gardens, and is it exquisite. The garden was designed in 1753. I recall the guard saying that it was 77 acres, but I haven't been able to verify that. We started walking around the gardens, admiring the incredible array of designs, including trees that had been shaped into a trellis.
There were weddings taking place ALL OVER. And of course, I had to get pictures of all of them.
We cruised around the gardens for a while, and we wandered over to an area where there was an interesting fountain. At the center was an owl, and there was water coming from above onto his head. While we were looking at it, an old man with a cane came over and said something to me in German. I told him I didn't speak German, so he started talking to me in English. He asked me if I knew the story of the fountain. It was from a fable by Aesop - the owl had captured a bird, and all the other birds came to the rescue of the captured bird. If you looked up to where the water was coming from, there were bird statues with water coming out of their mouths. The water was supposed to be hitting the owl, but because of the many years the fountain had been there, a little erosion had caused the streams of water to be a little off-base.
Then the little old man asked me if I had seen the bath-house. We hadn't gone into any buildings yet, so he walked us over to the bath-house, where the prince would go to take heated whirlpool type baths. It was exquisitely beautiful, and there was even a beautiful sitting room and bedroom. Goethe used to stay there and write.
We then walked back into the garden, and the man told me all about different aspects of the garden, including something that had been the inspiration of one of Goethe's poems, even reciting the poem. We walked over to an area where there were four sphinx statues and he told me to look at each one carefully, and then decide which one was the best one. I walked around and finally made my choice. He was delighted, and declared that I had chosen the best one. I had chosen the one with a book. He said I had chosen the best one, because it showed that I was not only a reader, but a writer.
We walked back to where the owl fountain was, and he explained that this was where the Prince Elector would come after this bath, to sit and relax. There were two alcoves, one on either side of the fountain. If he sat in one, that meant he wanted to be alone. If he sat in the other, that meant he wanted to have visitors. The alcoves were incredible - crusted entirely with gemstones - amethyst, citrine, quartz...I got some good pictures, be sure to click on them to see the detail.
My new friend (his name is Theodor Merkle) pointed out that if you are standing at the enter of the fountain area, and you look down a long, narrow corridor of trees, you see what looks like the most beautiful landscape with a sunset. It was called "world's end," as I recall. It is sort of an optical illusion, and very beautiful.
It turned out that my friend's great-great-great grandfather was a gardener at the Schloss gardens, so he knew everything about it. I couldn't have possibly had a better tourguide. We said goodbye, and Mike & Jane & I continued to explore the garden grounds.
We walked down the tunnel of trees where the "end of the world" painting was in order to see how it was done. I stepped into some bushes and some beautiful turquoise parrots flew out! Parrots in Germany!
We walked over to a lake where there were heron and ducks, and a HUGE white goose, who was very interested in us, and also very crabby. He came over and just investigated each of us up and down, and when that big old beak came close to your crotch, you were cringing! We were laughing like crazy and sort of following this goose around, when he went over by the lake and was standing by the lake with his butt facing us, and I jokingly said I should kick him in. So Jane starts egging me on, she has the camera, and I go over and very nervously, I finally give him a swift kick in the ass and into the lake he goes! Jane is making a little movie of it, which you can see here. HOWEVER, she stops filming as soon as the goose goes in the lake, so what you don't see is that I turned around to face her, and behind me a SPITTING MAD goose comes out of the lake after me with his wings spread wide, and honking like big rig! It was hilarious (and scary.)
We went by the Temple of Apollo, a beautiful structure with a fountain, and if you take a close-up look at the picture above, you will see Mike & I looking out from the fountain - there was a sort of cave behind it.
We walked along some beautiful walkways, and finally we saw a ginger squirrel. Jane and I had seen them for the first time in Prague - they are red-haired squirrels, and Jarka called them "ginger squirrels." It took a while, but I did get a picture of him.
We walked over to the other side of the gardens, where there is a beautiful replica of an Arabian mosque. All the way around there is a walkway with windows out to the garden. The way the windows framed the garden it was like art. Inside there was a beautiful ceiling.
We walked a little more, and went inside one of the buildings where there was an interesting display and exhibition about the garden and how it is put together. What a lot of work!
We left the Schloss and went across the street to where the Markt had been in the morning. Around the corner comes an antique car with another bride! We sat down at a cafe and had drinks and relaxed for a while. Mike took a picture of 2 dogs, a pretty girl AND a motorcycle. It was his lucky day.
Walked back to the car and headed for Heidelberg. We decided to eat at the Dubliner for our last night. Jane and I had seen a cheeseburger coming out of the kitchen another night so we were jonesing for one. We sat in the pub and played Quiddler while we waited for our food. Next to us were a group of young people, I think they were French, I don't remember anymore. But the thing that intrigued us is that they were ALL talking at the same time! It was a very lively conversation, but we couldn't figure out how they followed it.
Went back to the ghetto for some final packing and turned in.
No comments:
Post a Comment