Schwetzingen Castle Garden Visit

This past week we have been bless with “spring” weather! Cloudy but concidering the fact that we didn’t see too much sun lately it was SUNNY!! So, of course I use this to open my windows everyday ALL day, instead of just a few minutes in the morning.

Then I recharged my camera battery and on Friday (since it was the only day of last week when I wasn’t busy) I took out!!
Camera in the bag & hat on my head. It was a pretty day, but lots of wind, so the clouds full of rain will come and go as fast as you could take refuge under a tree! LOL! BUT I did have a great time, I went to the Schwetzingen castle.

Here is a little info about the castle for those of you who one day will go around the garden, like I did!
Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the Electors Palatine Karl III Philip and Charles Theodore. It is situated in Schwetzingen, roughly equidistant from the electors' seats at Heidelberg and Mannheim, and is most notable for its spacious and ornate gardens. Other than these exceptionally well preserved gardens and the castle proper, the compound also features one of the few surviving theaters in the rococo style.

The Palace Garden
The Garden Complex was created in Schwetzingen based on the example of Versailles and is unequalled anywhere in Europe.
The Schwetzingen Palace garden consists of two parts:
• The Symmetrically designed French baroque Garden with the Arion fountain in the center and
• The English landscape garden, this lies around the large pond and its arced canals in planned naturalness.
The Baroque garden is divided into the parterre, hedge zone and forest section. An unusual feature in Schwetzingen is the circular parterre formed by the “Zirkelbauten” (Quarter-Circle Buildings) and the vine-covered galleries, which distinguishes it from all other of the period.
The Schwetzingen gardens, like all baroque gardens, are oriented on the center axis of the palace.

The main avenue is the reference point for all parts of the gardens. This idea embodies the concept of the absolute ruler: All parts of the estate are based on him; his glory shines like the sun over everything; his entire surroundings reflect his importance.

With his building and landscape architects Nicolas de Pigage and Friedrich Ludwig Sckell, Carl Theodor, with his love of art and the good things in life, realized a garden complex which shows the intellectual history and fashions stretching from the baroque to the enlightenment to the Romantic period:
• The gardens, with their use of antique mythology (e.g. in the Temple of Apollo and the figure of Arion on the dolphin), becomes a Baroque stage for courtly life.
• The reasonable rationalistic view of the Enlightenment is reflected in the geometry of the circular parterre.
• In accordance with the ideas of the Romantic period, the concept of the gardens approaches nature with its imitation of natural moods and landscaped areas.

In all ages a multitude of fountains, cascades, lakes, ponds and channels bring movement into the gardens. Statesmen, artists and scholars of the highest rank met at the Palatinate Summer residence in Schwetzingen for the purpose of enjoying the opera performances and the magnificent courtly life. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave concerts here and Voltaire was a guest here. Schwetzingen later irresistibly attracted Romantic Friedrich Holderlin and Freiherr Von Eichendorff.

The Mosque was built as a Garden Folly.

For those of you who want to see more pictures from that day, follow the link below. They are "sharing" so don't expect the qualities to be "Perfect". You know how to contact me if you want a print of it! LOL!

Schwetzingen Castle Blog ready

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