There are three major palaces (or Schloesser) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and we've had a goal for a year now to go to see them all.
First, there was the fairy-tale palace of Schwerin in October last year...
With its lakeside orangerie...
and Rapunzel tower...
Then, in May, we went to see Gustrow's "Manly" Schloss...
With its banqueting hall decked out with fake-deer/real-antlers...
...And Italian-style arcades.
And finally, last week, we checked off the third Mecklenburg schloss, about a two-hour bus ride away in Ludwigslust.
It definitely had a much more...British?...look about it (reminded me of Churchill's Blenheim Palace).
Where Schwerin won for fairy-tale prettiness and Gustrow for manly-antler-decor, Ludwigslust definitely won for its gardens.
Acres and acres of what used to be the Duke of Mecklenburg's hunting park...
But eventually, over centuries, made into a beautiful example of English gardening, with trick fountains...
...and long walks through carefully manicured "wilderness."
Around lunchtime, we wandered through the forests, exploring grottoes and chapels and hiking paths and various mausoleums (daughter of the Tsar? Didn't expect that one.), and we found a small restaurant in what used to be the Duchess' country-style, thatched-roof getaway cottage.
Sitting with this view, across a wide meadow, with a bowl of Mecklenburger Potato-Plum soup might have made Ludwigslust's schloss my favorite of the three.
But, then again, looking through these pictures...I'm not quite sure which one I love the most anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Send a Dispatch to Headquarters! (Really, please do. We like comments!)