As I write this blog entry, it's the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival, people are wandering about the streets of Hong Kong, lanterns (including those in the shape of Hello Kitty) in hand, and the fire dragon is out parading in Tai Hang. But rather than venture out and take in those traditional festive sights, I -- who number among the few people who will have to go to work tomorrow (even though it's a public holiday) -- am going to take it easy and hang out in the relative quiet of my apartment.
More specifically, here's going ahead and casting my thoughts back a few weeks and to another continent in order to compose this follow-up to the first Schwetzingen photo-essay I put up a little more than a week ago. Even more specifically, this time around, I'm going to focus on showing some of the sights that can be enjoyed by way of strolling about in Schloss Schwetzingen's beautifully designed and well-maintained Baroque gardens:-
Like the 'mosque' shown in the earlier photo-essay,this Roman-style Minerva temple is not what one would
necessarily expect to see in a garden of a German schloss
An even more unexpected surprise discoverywas an aviary complete with live birds but also
water-spouting bird statues galore
A more close-up shot of three of the bird statuesperched way above eye level
The Temple of Apollo is an even more lavish edificeto be found in the gardens of a mere Palatinate Elector
View of the ceiling and upper portion of the statueof the God Apollo housed within the small 'temple'
Schloss Schwetzingen's garden appear to bear testimonyto the power of culture over nature (as well as of
extravagant aristocratic tendencies that I definitely could see
making the poor wanting to overthrow them!)
Centuries on, however, I'm glad that the gardens still existand now are open to the public to enjoy (for a small fee)
And I'm also glad that even though it rained early in the day,the skies did eventually clear so that my German friend and I
were able to better appreciate the schloss' gardens that,
ultimately, I consider the highlight of my visit to Schwetzingen :)
2 comments:
Wow--the reflections in the last one are great. As well as the bridge it looks like there was a perfect sky for it with lots of puffy clouds.
The centerpiece of the bird fountain looks like an owl although not a very happy one.
Hi ewaffle --
Looking at the blue skies in a couple of the photos, you wouldn't have thought it had rained that day -- never mind just an hour or so earlier, right?
As for that owl: funny that... especially since it had caught a fish and all! ;D
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