I had written down a particular car park which the website had advised, and it took us half an hour to find it and park. It seemed that the town of Ludwigsburg is an urban sprawl, and although designed in grid formation, it wasn't very easy to figure put which way to turn around to get back to where you wanted to be. Still, we managed to find the car park eventually, and in we went.
We have learnt something about some German tourist attractions - there is no end of ticket choices. Visit the main residence for 7 Euros, visit the museums for 5 Euros, visit the gardens for 8 Euros, Visit everything except the gardens for 13 Euros, visit everything including the gardens for 16 Euros....take your pick! We managed to buy some tickets, although I had said "Including the garden," Mathew had pointed to the one which was without. We realised after we had visited the Baroque Gallery and went back to change our tickets, but because the Baroque Gallery seemed to be the ONLY place in the complex which clipped the tickets, we weren't allowed to change. Which meant that we had paid 26 for everything except the garden, and had to pay 16 for the garden. Yes there was a communication issue going on here but still, a lesson to learn from I think!! It was very annoying. If we had visited anything else and gone back to the ticket office, we would have been able to get an upgrade.Anyway, back to the residence complex....it was all a little odd to be honest. Yes, it was nice like all the palaces we have been to so far, and perhaps it was because it was a Sunday, I have no idea...but there weren't many officials or attendants although that wasn't an issue, but the whole place seemed rather disjointed to me. Why were there so many ticket options? Why weren't we given a map of the complex, given the fact that it was absolutely huge? Why was there a lack of maps within the complex? Where were the lockers? Why weren't there any signs telling us that certain things were on the SECOND floor? I was all very unhelpful and it was pretty much a case of buying your tickets and the rest was up to you to discover what was where. The whole atmosphere of the place I found rather sterile, with the exception of the cafe and the gardens.
We visited a couple of the museums which seemed to house rather random collections of things such as Baroque paintings, ceramics (historical and modern) and some stone sculptures combined with children's period fashion designs(!). We then went into the cafe for something to eat, Mathew was still feeling a little nauseous so he just had a cold drink, whilst I managed to get myself a decaf Cappucino (the smallest I have ever had) and a pear cheesecake which was more like a frangipani tart but without the almond flavour. I don't think they do cheesecake here quite like they do in the UK....but it was still very nice though! Something I've noticed about desserts, although I haven't had many here, is that they are sweet, but they look much sweeter than they taste. Or so it seems. Perhaps I've just managed to choose the ones that aren't sickly sweet...! We had some time to kill before our tour at 1:30 so we popped into the shop thinking that would do it. We were out in less than 5 minutes. Another thing we have noticed here is the German gift shops at tourist attractions such as palaces and castles - not only are they so sparsely filled they look like art exhibits, but they seem to sell a lot of items which have absolutely no relevance to the attraction in question. There's definitely an obsession with porcelain (understandably), candles and the oddest one - paper napkins. They come in three different sizes and with a number of different designs. Even the German equivalent of Paperchase sells them....LOTS of them. I don't think I have ever seen so many paper napkins in my life!!Next, we had a guided tour around the residence which took 90 minutes - this gives you a sense of the scale of the place, walking from one room to the next from one end of the place to the other. The tour was very good and very detailed, although I had no idea our tour guide would be our tour guide as he wasn t wearing a uniform or a badge, it was just as if some randon guy and popped in to do it. I also have no idea what his name was as he said it so quickly it sounded like "My name is asdfghjkl," but other than that he was very informative. It did feel like he was rushing through a few things and it all ended rather abruptly however, he left us in an odd place at the top of the stairs and it was a case of "Ok thanks bye," as he made off into a dark corridor to somewhere we will never know.
After a long stroll around the garden (and free toilets, I should think so too with an entry fee of 8 Euros a piece), we made our way back to the car and attempted to find a parking space closer to the hotel which we had passed earlier. About 20 minutes later we found a spot and checked in to our rather modern and colourful (lime green accented) hotel room. Very spacious and comfortable, if a little warm. This hotel was one of the most expensive, after having a limited choice in the area, none of which had breakfast included in the price advertised on the website, so this one will be extra.
We had dinner at yet another Italian restaurant and ate outside for the first time we have been in Germany. After filling our bellies with Ravioli and Spaghetti, we headed back to the hotel room as the weather became quite close and we were expecting a little rain at some point. Tonight we had a DVD player so we could watch the discs we brought with us to watch (Mathew brought the wrong power cable with him so we haven't been able to watch anything since we arrived here!). Our choice? Castle :)
No comments:
Post a Comment