Notes from Germany, Vol.14, 19 December 2006
This past summer, in July I believe, my 
family and I took the short trip over to Schwetzingen to see the famous castle and gardens there. It was bright, sunny, and downright hot, but it was a fabulous day none the less!
We began with a tour of the castle itself. The castle in Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the prince-elector. The Holy Roman Emperor was “elected” by the prince-electors, who essentially served as lesser kings. I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures of the inside because photographs were forbidden. We had quite a stroke of fortune, though. The tour guide indicated that there was no scheduled English language tour that afternoon, but after conferring with the only other guest there besides us she decided that she would do the tour in English anyway.
The tour was fascinating! We learned all kinds of interesting stuff about what it was like to be nobility during the 18th century. The castle at Schwetzingen is done in the Rococo style, heavily influenced by Lois XIV. The kitchen, though, was
actually some distance from the castle itself because of the fear of fire. Being a female noble was no fun. The standard waist for dresses was 50 centimeters or less than 18 inches. Achieving such a waist size was assisted through the wearing of whale bone corsets. These were worn so tightly that it was not uncommon for a woman to faint from lack of air. The make-up worn by both men and women included numerous hazardous materials such as arsenic, mercury, and lead. Their teeth were lousy and their health was generally poor.
It didn’t sound to me like being a noble was much fun back then, but according to the tour it was even worse being a serf. Folks at the time often lived together in a one room house which might also be shared with the family cow. Most of the poorer folk slept right on the floor on a bed of insect infested straw.
Hunger and disease were a part of daily life and life itself was usually rather short.
It was also disturbing to learn that it was considered acceptable that the nobility lived in such opulence while the serfs in the nearby village lived in squalor. Each winter the prince-elector would have ice gathered in blocks which would be stored in deep cellars and covered in straw so that in the summer he was able to drink his wine in chilled glasses. During the summer, the prince-elector and his court would often entertain themselves with child-like games such as Blind Man’s Bluff. What a contrast to think of the nobility out in the gardens playing Blind Man’s Bluff while the serfs in the village could barely scratch out an existence!
After our tour of the castle we wandered about the gardens on the grounds of the castle. To be honest, the gardens are what the castle at Schwetzingen is famous for. And there is no doubt as to why that is the case as they were absolutely fabulous! The only place we have seen that exceeds the beauty, variety, and scope of the gardens at Schwetzingen are the gardens at Powerscourt in Ireland. There were fountains, sculptures, outlying buildings, wandering paths, and trees pruned to look like archways. Amazing!
family and I took the short trip over to Schwetzingen to see the famous castle and gardens there. It was bright, sunny, and downright hot, but it was a fabulous day none the less!We began with a tour of the castle itself. The castle in Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the prince-elector. The Holy Roman Emperor was “elected” by the prince-electors, who essentially served as lesser kings. I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures of the inside because photographs were forbidden. We had quite a stroke of fortune, though. The tour guide indicated that there was no scheduled English language tour that afternoon, but after conferring with the only other guest there besides us she decided that she would do the tour in English anyway.
The tour was fascinating! We learned all kinds of interesting stuff about what it was like to be nobility during the 18th century. The castle at Schwetzingen is done in the Rococo style, heavily influenced by Lois XIV. The kitchen, though, was
actually some distance from the castle itself because of the fear of fire. Being a female noble was no fun. The standard waist for dresses was 50 centimeters or less than 18 inches. Achieving such a waist size was assisted through the wearing of whale bone corsets. These were worn so tightly that it was not uncommon for a woman to faint from lack of air. The make-up worn by both men and women included numerous hazardous materials such as arsenic, mercury, and lead. Their teeth were lousy and their health was generally poor.It didn’t sound to me like being a noble was much fun back then, but according to the tour it was even worse being a serf. Folks at the time often lived together in a one room house which might also be shared with the family cow. Most of the poorer folk slept right on the floor on a bed of insect infested straw.
Hunger and disease were a part of daily life and life itself was usually rather short.It was also disturbing to learn that it was considered acceptable that the nobility lived in such opulence while the serfs in the nearby village lived in squalor. Each winter the prince-elector would have ice gathered in blocks which would be stored in deep cellars and covered in straw so that in the summer he was able to drink his wine in chilled glasses. During the summer, the prince-elector and his court would often entertain themselves with child-like games such as Blind Man’s Bluff. What a contrast to think of the nobility out in the gardens playing Blind Man’s Bluff while the serfs in the village could barely scratch out an existence!
After our tour of the castle we wandered about the gardens on the grounds of the castle. To be honest, the gardens are what the castle at Schwetzingen is famous for. And there is no doubt as to why that is the case as they were absolutely fabulous! The only place we have seen that exceeds the beauty, variety, and scope of the gardens at Schwetzingen are the gardens at Powerscourt in Ireland. There were fountains, sculptures, outlying buildings, wandering paths, and trees pruned to look like archways. Amazing!
If you would like to look at any of our pictures from our trip to Schloss Schwetzingen, please click on the link below.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rtillett247/album?.dir=/51b4re2&.src=ph&.tok=phIDvqFBF1MmUDSN
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rtillett247/album?.dir=/51b4re2&.src=ph&.tok=phIDvqFBF1MmUDSN
