After the food and drink and a boat ride (you can rent rowing and pedal boats for half an hour or an hour), the party broke up. O.K. and I helped the others to carry their things to the cars, then we walked home - just not the direct way.
Instead, we took a long, pleasant detour through first the deer park and then the palace grounds.
This first picture is of the small palace by the lake. Sometimes concerts are held in there, and it can be rented for weddings. I spotted the hearts decoration on the wall, and although I am no fan of adding something like that to a historical building (it is beautiful enough on its own), I knew I wanted to show this to my friend Kay:
In the deer park. You've seen it before on my blog. The game keeper's is one of my sister's favourite houses in Ludwigsburg, so this picture is for her:
Stopping for a shandy. Well chilled and very refreshing!
Palace grounds again, but in a different part than what you saw in my previous post:
An (almost) naked lady on the roof? Well, it was all in the name of art, you know!
This last picture was taken while we were sitting in deck chairs that the kind people who look after the palace have set up in the inner courtyard. It was already 6:30 pm, and not many visitors were around anymore. There was a family with children playing football. I sat in that deck chair, resting for a few minutes, looking at the palace and watching the little boy running after his ball, and I was once more grateful for living today.
When the palace was built and for the next two-and-a-half centuries after, it would have been unthinkable for a common little boy to play ball in the inner courtyard, or for common people like O.K. and myself to rest in a deck chair, enjoying the beauty of the summer evening and of the building in front of us.
The grounds are really in full bloom now, aren't they? How lonely a palace must have been then, all those years ago, with nothing new and interesting to see or talk of when all who resided inside saw the same things and people day in and day out. Or, that's how I imagine life there.
ReplyDeleteThe palace was bristling with people and activities, there was a constant coming and going. In its heyday, there were hundreds of people living and working inside and in the grounds. Guests of the duke and his family, plus their entourage, frequently meant more work and more people to cater for. Balls, hunts, theatre and opera performances, games... the rich ones weren't bored for that, the working ones had plenty to do all day and night.
DeleteAnother wonderful evening stroll! I really like that GateKeeper's House. I don't remember it, but I must have seen it before.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I have shown the game keeper's (or game warden's) house before, Kristi. It is a classic Förster-Haus and indeed inhabited by the man (or woman) whose job it is to look after the deer and other animals as well as the park in its entirety.
DeleteThis is an amazing scene. The garden around this house is absolutely amazing, I have never seen anything like this before. Thanks for the share. Keep up the posts.
ReplyDeleteWorld of Animals
Hello World of Animals, and welcome to my blog!
DeleteThe duke who once owned this palace would have flinched at the term "house" ;-) It is a complex of buildings the size of a small village. I have posted many more pictures of it, you can find them under the label/tag "Ludwigsburg".
You are right, I do like the hearts! I can't quite make it out though, it looks as if the entwined hearts are painted on a brown background and somehow placed on the building. Is that right? Now, if they painted them on the building myself, as much as I like hearts, I don't want them on a historical building!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you are having a great summer, you look relaxed and happy posing with your shandy!
I know they are hard to see there in the shade (and the picture taken from relatively far away, too), but to me they looked not like painted, but like light-up tubes in heart shape mounted on a brown backdrop to match the building. Next time I'll be at Monrepos, I will have another look, maybe in better light.
DeleteIt was a great day, I love summer and was in the company of O.K., no wonder I look happy and relaxed in that picture!
You don't seem to be sharing our heatwave, Meike. They say we will reach 35 degrees next week. it sounds as though you had a really enjoyable time.
ReplyDeleteIt really was as enjoyable as it sounds and looks, Frances!
DeleteOur temperatures have been in the high 20s/low 30s during the day for most of the month, but it has been cooling off nicely during the nights, which makes the heat easy to bear during the day.
I never cease to be happified when I enlarge the photos of the gardens and imagine being there. The shandy bottles look huge!
ReplyDeleteI am glad you like the gardens, Graham. No need to tell you they are even better when you walk there for real!
DeleteThe bottles are only 1/2 l each; it must be the perspective of O.K.'s mobile phone camera that makes them look so huge :-)
Such a beautiful park - a joy to the eye :)
ReplyDeleteIt is Ludwigsburg's jewel, Monica!
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