Ludwigsburg

On Tuesday, the three older kids went to a camp run by our friend Elke for the Lutheran church. While they were gone, we took advantage and dragged Joss to another palace. This one lies just outside of Stuttgart.
It is baroque and was built by a duke for his mistress. Evidently his wife lived in Stuttgart and he lived out here on a construction site until he died.
We got into a German tour and pulled out the iPad almost immediately for Joss. The guide talked really fast and moved us very quickly from room to room, so we'd pick up Joss and the iPad and just get him settled in a room only to have to heave him up again and go onto the next.
The throne room. Napoleon made the duke of Baden-Wurttenburg king, which lasted for three years.
The palace still has many of the original furnishings and fabrics. And do take a look down that hallway!
The queen's bedroom -- I think this was Charlotte Mathilde.
And her library. This is one of the starred sights in our guidebook, and so I'm going to stick in a picture. Now you've seen it.
The hall of portraits.
Original sets in the palace theater. It went out of fashion and they had lots of props and sets in storage, so they've gotten them out of mothballs. These appeared to be needlepointed.
This is the mirrored room, that was used as a bedroom, which I find both vain and impractical. Too many reflections and too much light.
This is the ceiling with a trompe d'oleil painting.
And a state room. By this time it was getting truly arduous to pick up Joss and move him on. I've only put in a fraction of the pictures we took, and we missed plenty of rooms because we were going at such a fast clip. It all made sense when I looked at the time and realized we'd been at it for an hour and a half! Then the guide said that we had walked almost a kilometer on the tour. I can believe it!
We ate lunch in the courtyard and then took this one home for a nap. We didn't get to see the extensive gardens around back, or either of the other castles, Favorite and Monrepos, but that place is just monstrous and it will have to wait!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mohr im Hemd

Image
I finally got up the nerve to try my own Mohr im Hemd. This was the dish that we always ordered if we found it on the menu. It translates as "The Moor and His Shirt" which is so politically incorrect that it isn't easy to find, even though it is a traditional Viennese dish. It is a steamed pudding, like the Christmas dessert I grew up on and it is very moist and very chocolate, though not as sweet as an American dessert. It was successful enough that Rob had me make it twice more in the same weekend. Happily, after learning how to make it, I feel less guilty about eating the stuff. How often does that happen? Here is the recipe I used, as opposed to the top secret family recipe that I don't even have, or the recipe from my Austrian cookbook that asks for 'gratified butter': MA's Mohr im Hemd 3 bread rolls, crusts removed and cubed 1 c milk 3/4 c unsalted butter 1/4 c sugar 8 oz best and darkest chocolate you can find 8 eggs 1/2 c sugar 1/2 c walnuts,
Read more

The Trip Home: A Report Card

Image
Our Itinerary: Stuttgart to Atlanta and Atlanta to Salt Lake. It was a good schedule, flying out at 11:00am and getting in at 9:00pm on the same day (flying back across 8 time zones too, so about 23 hours of travel door to door). German taxi driver: A+. cheerful, knowledgeable, efficient and with candy for the kids Stuttgart airport: C-. inefficient, poorly-designed, and not very helpful; had to show our passports 5 times in 5 different places. took 1 1/2 hours to process us from curb to gate. ugh. Delta: B-. The flight attendants all looked "rid hard & put away wet" and the bare bones service just can't keep up with their [government subsidized] European counterparts with their dewy-skinned attendants, steaming towels, toys for the kids, and gourmet meals instead of astronaut food served in foil pouches. They got us there and did it on time, but it feels more and more like riding on a bus with a lot of rules. German Family With Four Kids Who Sat Next To Us On The
Read more

Josiah Oscar McFarland

Image
Look who came on Monday! I was induced, so I was guessing that this might happen. As was recently pointed out, when I was having Maddie, I didn't want any sort of drug or medical intervention at all, so the full-on embrace of induction was seen as somewhat hypocritical of me. All I can say is, if you have ever delivered a 10 lb, 10 oz baby naturally (Will), you might think about your options too! My OB practice is happy to schedule an induction for any subsequent pregnancies if you're doing well, and I thought I might get a smaller baby and go back to sleeping on my stomach a week or so earlier too. I was right on the first proposition, but I'm not sleeping yet. I got hooked up to pitocin at around 9, but didn't really do much until around noon. I drove all the nurses crazy because the monitors lose the baby at the least wiggle from either of us. It was the same way with Sebastian, and I think I just don't transmit well. I got to more active labor around two (I
Read more