Day 10 Schloss Schwetzingen

We have ourselves a beautiful sunny day today, so we want to make sure we get some outdoor sights taken care of. Its been very grey and cloudy during most of this trip but I’m not complaining because we haven’t been rained on once despite the forecast. We got in the car and drove to Schwetzingen. Its a small town only about 10 minutes away. This is where Marc’s army barracks were back in the day. More on that later.

There is a lovely small palace here with large, beautiful grounds. Its no Versailles, but what else is?  Most of the palace is closed to the public, but there was one wing open that was full of sculptures and the grounds were open to walk through. The history of the palace is amusing. Back in the 1600’s, the king had the castle in Heidelberg along with his queen. Well, like many powerful men he had a favorite mistress. He had the castle in Schwerzingen built for the mistress to keep her at a little bit of a distance. The queen didn’t like having her around. Go figure.

This is the orange hall. Full of sculptures.

The grounds are nicely landscaped, although the fountains aren’t running this time of year. 

The gardens have very interesting buildings throughout the grounds. They are representative of structures you would see in other countries. The Elector (King) had them built for his and his guests entertainment as they walk the garden grounds.  There was one we could go inside of. Its referred to as the “Mosque”. Its very pretty.

Not sure what this one is. Looks like ruins.

This looks Greek or Roman

View from the steps of this structure

Side Gate

Cool Bridge

One last funny thing Marc told me about this town. They are the asparagus capital of the world and have an asparagus festival here every year that gets quite a turnout. These pics below are of a statue showing a woman washing and preparing asparagus.