The drive back to our home was just gonna be too much for us, and thankfully I had the foresight to know that (based on my friends Angie and Marbury's warnings). It's summer in Europe (particularly... it's August in Europe) so it's to be expected. So I booked a place in Munich to stop at on the way back. And that was a really smart thing because what should have ben a 4.5 hour drive turned out to be a 7.5 hour drive. But I don't want to stay in Munich and then wake up and drive home - because that seems really wasteful to me. Let's at least see something before we go home! Since I planned this whole trip, then I got to choose. Schloss Nymphenburg, it is!
Schloss Nymphenburg is a palace that was built by the Elector Ferdinand Maria as a "push present" to his wife Henriette for the birth of their son, the heir Max Emanuel. Not only that, but it was later the birthplace of our favorite Bavarian (crazy) hero... Ludwig II! And on that basis, I had to go.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of little cool "sub" palaces on the grounds that are incredibly detailed in their Rococo style. But of course, I have two kids with me who might actually overthrow their queen if I make them go see more than the bare minimum. So the palace apartments were all we saw. (Besides, I had 13 loads of laundry to do when I got home.)
The Great Hall in the Central Pavilion is probably the most impressive room in the palace.
Who cleans these windows? That's what I want to know!
The colors and the gold in the Great Hall are just beautiful.
I love the rainbow in this one. Don't judge. I just like rainbows. It's actually called, "The Homage to Flora." Flora was a nymph, and of course, that is a little nod to the name of the palace.
Musical instruments and objects of the theater were a big theme in the Great Hall as it was mostly used for big parties and dances.
Wonder what Todd would think if I decided I wanted to do our ceiling like this one?
This story was perhaps the most... um... disturbing? This guy on the left is the Elector Karl Theodor. He was married to Elisabeth Auguste von Pfalz-Sulzbach in 1742, and she had one son twenty years later who died in infancy. After this, she moved to her own residence and removed herself from his court in 1768 (yet still saw him about once a year until she stopped even doing that in 1781!) Meanwhile, Karl Theodor had seven illegitimate children with three other women. After Elisabeth Auguste died in 1794, he promptly remarried this little beauty. Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Este was only 18 years old. Karl Theodor was 70. So it wasn't surprising (at least to this writer) that she never really felt anything for him. He died four years later of a stroke. (I imagine her running through Schloss Nymphenburg yelling, "I'm free! I'm free!")
The Electress slept in this bedroom, but Todd said he didn't want a bed like this because he doesn't like footboards.
King Ludwig I (not my pal King Ludwig II... the first was his grandfather) was a strange fella who reigned between 1825-1848. He was married to Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen (their wedding celebration was the first ever Oktoberfest in Munich!). Ludwig had numerous affairs, but his affair with Lola Montez (not pictured above) caused such an uproar that he had to abdicate. During his reign though, he accumulated a large number of paintings of what he considered to be the most beautiful women in Munich. This lady is who Todd and I deemed the prettiest (haha). Her name was Helene Sedlmayr, and while many of the women in his Gallery of Beauties were of aristocratic blood, Helene was a shoemakers daughter who brought toys to Ludwig's children. In the end, she wound up marrying the king's valet!
This is the room I've been waiting to see! This is the very room that our crazy friend Ludwig II was born in!
The bed on the right was actually two mattresses put together parallel to the headboard. One cute little story was that the Queen Caroline (second wife of Maximilian I) loved having her daughters around so she always kept a little table and chair in her bedroom. Queen Caroline's great grandson was the Archduke Ferdinand, who's assassination in Sarajevo started World War I.
When you leave the royal rooms of Nymphenburg Palace, you have to go back through the Great Hall.
As it started sprinkling, we decided to take a quick run out behind the palace into the gardens. This is the view from the back side.
They've got a pretty rock fountain in the gardens.
Looking back to the larger and more famous section of Nymphenburg Palace.
It started to rain, so meh... time to go. The flowers were very pretty in front of the palace but my goodness how annoying are those moles or groundhogs are.
Until next time, Schoss Nymphenburg!
No comments:
Post a Comment