Catching Up: On Top Of The World

...or, at least, (almost) on top of my home town!

This is where I found myself on the Saturday before going to England.

It was a lovely day, very warm for April at about 28 Celsius (82 F), and I knew I was going to have plenty of time on the Sunday to do all my packing and getting ready for travelling, so I intended to spend as much time out in the open as possible (especially since I knew it was not going to be anywhere near as warm or sunny in England...).

My Mum and I decided to go to a gardening exhibition at the castle grounds, but it was one of the very few times a year when one of the church towers was open to the public, and my Mum suggested we go there on our way.

It was an unforgettable experience - my very first time up there! - and I am grateful my Mum had the idea.

Of course, I took my camera with me, and here is what we saw:

The largest and most comfortable part of the staircase.

All very light and airy here.

It is getting a bit steeper now, and darker.

And narrower. Nobody there but my Mum and I!

Not quite there yet - this is the clockwork. The sound was fascinating, I imagined it being The Sound Of Time Itself.

Further up...

We're there! This little chamber in the top of the tower is still in use: every day at noon, a small group of people (volunteers, I am sure) climb up here and play a choral on brass instruments from the narrow balcony surrounding the chamber. I'm afraid I don't know for how long this tradition has been going on, but it dates probably back at least 200 years or so. The church itself was finished in 1726 - Ludwigsburg is a young town, having been founded only in 1704 on what used to be a favourite hunting ground of the then duke of Württemberg, Eberhard Ludwig.

We met the lady whose horn it is resting on the chair and talked to her a little bit. And then we went outside to enjoy the view:

The other tower, not open to the public, on the opposite side of the church roof; we had climbed its twin.

Looking north east across the market square. The arrows point to (from left to right): the park, where you have seen me spending a sunny afternoon every now and then already; the palace, where we were going to go next; the hospital, where I spent a week in September 2010 before I wrote this.

Looking west/north-west. This time, the arrows point to my old school (left) and the place I've shown you here.

Looking west, the arrow pointing to where my house is - you can see how close to town centre I am.

And now, looking down, to give you an impression of how high up we were:

The market is a bustling farmer's market and takes place every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, with Saturday usually being the busiest of the three.
There in the corner, between the yellow and the white house, is "my" Irish pub, where I so like going for quiz nights with my friends. The large white building in the top left corner of the picture is Ludwigsburg's town hall, where Steve and I got married; behind it and not visible properly is the library, where once upon a time I was trained and worked as a librarian.

A close-up of one of the stalls; I tried to do more such shots, but there were always so many people, I couldn't get a shot without them, and didn't want to show people I had not asked for permission.

We stayed a while up there, enjoying the view across our home town and the sun, before we carefully descended the stairs (somehow, going down is always a bit more difficult than getting up, as any cat who has ever climbed a tree will confirm) and walked on, towards the palace grounds.

(And don't worry - I am not going to make it a habit of posting more than once a day; today is an exception because I still have some catching up to do before I'll start on writing about my week in England.)