On Friday the whole family was on a trip to Schwetzingen to show us the beautiful garden of the palace.
Schwetzingen Castle began as a simple aristocratic fishing retreat (much like Versailles which began as a hunting lodge) and had an eventful architectural history, in several phases of construction, especially during the reigns of the Electors Palatine Karl Philip (1716-1742) and Karl IV Theodor (1742-1799) who, as their answer to Versailles, embellished the castle gardens with some of the finest and most elaborate formal water parterres in Germany gardens.
As it evolved, the high central Baroque block of the Castle was extended to either side (from 1747 onwards) in matching curved ranges of glazed arcades that were punctuated by pavilions which followed the arc of the vast garden circle. They partly enclose the circle bisected by a wide gravel axis flanked by parterres which centers on a spring-fed water-basin inspired by the bassin of Diana at Versailles, but here expressing the more appropriately water-centered Greek myth of the poet Arion and the dolphins.
The Schwetzingen Castle is the most famous landmark of the city. The accompanying garden is also very famous as there are elements of French Baroque styles combined with the English gardening style, with statuary by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt. Also worth seeing are the theatre, the orangery, the bath, the Apollo temple, Mercury temple, the mosque (built 1778 – 1791), the Minerva temple and the fountain of Arion.
I'm sure, that you believe me, that I was so so tired, when I came home again.
