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The Schloss (Castle) Schwetzingen was the summer home of prince elects Karl III Phillip and Charles Theodore and is well known for it's beautifully maintained gardens. The garden is a blend of two styles, the French Formal and the English Landscape and is preserved that way to reflect the change in gardening attitude during the 1700's. You can see the formal style garden as soon as you walk in the entrance. It has a huge circular format, with hedges trimmed and planted in designs around fountains. As you walk farther back into the garden, the look is much more natural. Some, but not all, trees and hedges are trimmed in triangular cylinders or rectangles, and there are paths winding around lakes and fields. This is the transition between the old and new styles.
We left around 10:30 expecting to only spend a few hours meandering in the gardens. Five hours later we called it quits, still not having seen everything. We took a break about halfway through and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Cantina. It wasn't "mexican" like we have back in the states, but I think it's the closest we can get here in Germany. There was no basket of chips with salsa, the enchiladas were wrapped with corn tortillas, and the nachos con queso we ordered for Maddox were 5 gigantic chips baked with a blob of monteray jack cheese in the middle. Still not a bad meal, and the bananawiesen beer that Ben had was mighty tasty.
Back to the gardens, we saw several ornate statues scattered among the grounds, along with fountains that sprayed water in circles and some sprayed from the rooftops. There was a bath house that we could not take pictures in, a roman aquaduct ruin, and (my favorite) an 18th century Mosque. There were ducks, fish, and even a peacock!
We had a great time, even though we were unprepared for the vast scale of the garden. My suggestion to anyone visiting would be to wear tennis shoes and pack a lot of water.....maybe even a picnic lunch.
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