We started in the Schloß garten. It is immediately out the door to our hotel
so it was the perfect place to begin. It
was beautiful and green. The first
building we came to was the Früstucks (Breakfast) Pavillion. It is the place where the king used to take
breakfast and it has a phenomenal view.
From there we walked to the Pompeianum.
It is a replica of the villa of Castor and Pollux from Pompei. It was severely destroyed in World War II but
has since been rebuilt and is full of Roman artifacts. Anna really enjoyed walking through and the
Admissions lady kept saying how cute the girls were.
After we finished at the villa, we made our way through the
garden to the castle. Along the way, we
enjoyed plenty of scenic views of the Main river. We even saw two pairs of swans swimming in
it. At the castle, we made our way
inside to the exhibits after looking at the courtyard. The first thing we saw was an explanation of
the castle’s history. It was first built
in the 1300’s then it burned. In the
1600’s it was rebuilt as a castle for the Archbishop of Mainz as a secondary
residence. That building included the
remnants of the original fortress. It
was then destroyed in the Second World War when a German army commander chose
to base his operations in the cellar.
The U.S. Army destroyed the castle to get to him. In the 1960’s the Bavarian Castle Department
restored the castle and opened a portion to the public. Today, it houses an art museum, a display of
castle furnishings (hidden during the war to avoid destruction) and the world’s
largest collection of cork models. Anna
had a good time at first but got bored after the first half. There is only so much art an 8 year old can
take.
Afterward, we found a playground where the girls could get
some wiggles out and then we ate lunch including some Bavarian pretzels which
were excellent. After lunch, we continued
wandering and made our way to Schöntal Park.
We walked past a ruined church covered with all kinds of birds which
Sabine loved and made our way to the playground. We didn’t have much time since we had to go
meet a high school friend of Patrick’s.
We rushed back through town to the castle to meet her.
We went with Martina and her boyfriend Michael to have ice
cream. By this point, Sabine was quite
tired and ready to be done. She had a
little melt down while we were having ice but was better once we were
done. From there, we walked back to the
playground we were at before and the girls played. It was pretty hot and humid and they were
both tired so it didn’t last long. We
walked back to the hotel, stopping at another church along the way.
After a short break in the hotel room, we made our way out
to dinner. We stopped at a wine bar not
far from our hotel. The woman who helped
us was very nice and the food was great!
I had flammkuchen – flat bread pizza – with almonds and gruyere cheese. It was very yummy! The girls weren’t that hungry so they played
while Patrick and I relaxed and had dessert.
We chatted with our waitress for quite a while and told her it was our
last night in Germany. She gave us a
discount and wished us well on our trip home.
We heard music and walked back up toward the castle to see
what was going on. We found a restaurant
full of dancing people. They were all
quite good and we watched for a minute.
Pretty soon, Anna was dancing with Patrick. We then walked back up toward the castle
since Sabine wanted to see it again. The
girls danced with Patrick again and then we headed back toward the hotel.
Tomorrow, we are leaving.
On the one hand, it will be nice to get back to our regular
routine. I know Sabine misses it. On the other hand, we will be sad to go. We have had amazing weather (only two days of
rain out of 13 and most of the time temperatures were in the 80s), great food, lots
of cool stuff to see and fun times with family.
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