This part of the palace ground was of a more formal layout when it was originally designed. It once held what was back then claiming to be one of Europe's biggest opera houses, a wooden structure that was left neglected and eventually demolished when the court moved from Ludwigsburg back to Stuttgart in 1775. According to old maps and plans, it stood where the pond is today.
The way the gardens look nowadays in this part of the grounds is supposed to be more or less how it was done for Charlotte Mathilde, an English princess who married the German duke Friedrich who later became the first king of Wuerttemberg (thanks to a deal with Napoleon - I have written about this before).
Anyway - the area around the Park-Café is beautiful, and even more so in the evening light when we normally don't get to see it. When the birthday party ended and people were beginning to leave, the only light in the park was the moon. Thankfully, it was nearly full, and no clouds stopped its silvery light from reaching the ground. Only in the shade underneath the trees it was so dark you could hardly see where you went. Most of our guests are not so familiar with the park and needed help in finding their way back to the gates and their cars parked outside, and so my sister and I walked along with some of them. It was a strange, wonderful and mysteriously romantic atmosphere, and my sister was right when she remarked that the two of us had walked these paths countless times all our lives but only now, in our mid-forties, did we see the park at night.
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| The palace at night. As you can see, everywhere else is pitch black dark. |
For me, these moonlit walks just added to the overall effect of a very memorable week.
Hello Meike,
ReplyDeleteThis looks to be a truly lovely place in which to hold your mother's birthday event. The grounds are so well kept and full of colour. We love the formal layout and it certainly suits the pavilion building.
It must have been magical to experience the atmosphere of the place after dark with only the moon for illumination. Gardens are wonderful in moonlight and anything white takes on a magically ethereal quality. Perfect!
Hello Jane and Lance,
DeleteHave you seen the pictures from the venue itself, three posts back? It really was a lovely place for the birthday.
The park after dark with just the moon for light truly was magical. I would have loved to stroll and explore on my own, and find out whether the statues come alive at night or not.
Meike we have come to expect exceptional photos from you and these are wonderful. Thank you always for sharing your "walks" with us and you good eye for photo composition.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jill, what a great compliment! I never feel like my pictures are exceptional, but I try to show what I see, and what I think is worth showing.
DeleteOh! I am so with you on that evening light, it is just very beautiful! And how very, very dark the night was around that gorgeous palace!
ReplyDeleteThe grounds around the palace are so amazing, I think I would have stayed there as long as possible!
I wish I could have shown you what it looked like in the park with the silvery moon light playing on the lawns and ponds, and the black shadows under the trees and shrubs!
DeleteWhat a beautiful place for a birthday celebration. Happy Birthday to your mom!
ReplyDeleteVery beautiful indeed, and we were incredibly lucky with the weather - it was raining heavily for most of the rest of the week.
DeleteThank you for your good wishes! It was even raining heavily for most of the rest of the month of august!
DeleteA celebration held in such a beautiful place is made even more celebratory - if that is possible. The grounds, the cafe itself seem to be imbued with a little of the stardust of bygone time.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a nostalgic charme about the place, which is probably one of the main reasons for us liking it so much. We've all been going there ever since we were very little - my Mum herself a little girl, and my sister and I were first taken there as babies in our prams.
DeleteYou and your sister are lovely daughters and your mum is a very lovely lady. It sounds like a most wonderful birthday week and I am so happy for you that it all went off well. Even the surprise stayed secret!
ReplyDeleteWish your mum a very happy belated birthday and I hope that you will all have a wonderful time together for her 80th in ten years’ time.
Thank you, Friko!
DeleteYes, we hope that, too. Next year will be my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, but they have already said they don't want anything "big"...
Thank you for your good wishes, Friko! We hope to be able to celebrate my 80th also in the "Park-Café", because it was a really wonderful evening.
DeleteI was just being transported into the garden when you mentioned the moonlight and I could actually feel the cool warmth (does that make sense to you?) of the evening and I was suddenly in my not-quite-so-youth again in a garden in the moonlight and then came to your next sentence which described perfectly how I felt. One of your most evocative posts.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Graham! I could have gone on and on about that very special atmosphere in the park at night, where moonlight and velvety darkness took turns in shaping the familiar landscape into something new, but I did not want to make the post unduly long.
DeleteOh yes, cool warmth makes perfect sense to me! It was definitely there that night.
It all looks beautiful, Meike, and I would love to walk in the moonlight there. What a great setting for a novel, or a movie! xoxox
ReplyDeleteThe palace and its grounds have been used as settings for several movies, but none of them a box office hit; they were mostly productions for German TV and won't be known to anyone outside this country, I guess. But you are right, it is really beautiful and makes a perfect backdrop for a movie or novel!
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