Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart

This weekend I decided to stay in Mannheim to save money, so I planned a day trip to Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart and I posted about it in the DAAD RISE Heidelberg group asking if anyone would be interested in joining me. Sure enough, I received 4 replies (all from people I had never met before) and we decided to meet in the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof bright and early Saturday morning (yesterday).  Two of the girls, Leila and Wenye, are students at Oxford University and have grown up in Manchester and Cambridge, England, respectively. Another girl, Selynne Guo was from Calgary, Alberta. And the only boy, Jackson Chu, grew up and is currently a medical student in Vancouver, British Columbia (the west coast of Canada for those who forget geography..). For the first time ever, I was the only American. On the hour-long train ride to Ludwigsburg, we had a great time talking and sharing stories about each other's miscommunications with the Germans in our lab. I also learned a lot about how differently universities are run in Canada and England compared to in the US.

When we arrived in Ludwigsburg, we went to the Marktplatz, then the Rathaus, and then began our quest to find the real attractions we were drawn to visit, the palaces. First, we went to the Residence Palace and the fairy-tale gardens surrounding it. We also were lucky enough to catch a 2-hour English tour of the inside of the palace (which is the only way that visitors are allowed inside). During the tour, we were guided through 60 rooms and learned a lot about the history of the palace.

Residence Schloss

Wenye, Leila, Selynne, and me :)

View of the Palace from the Interior Courtyeard

Receiving Room for Guests

Where the King would talk to Guests

The King's Bedroom

Queen's Bedroom

toilet

the Queen's Drawing Room

Lunch Room in the Queen's part of the house 

Hall of Monarchs

The King & Queen's box in the theatre

The King's Theatre

One of the 4 small Game Rooms 

View out the window of the Gardens

The King's own personal Church

 Across the street was the entrance to the Favorite Schloss. The Favorite Schloss served as a hunting retreat for the royal family and they went there mostly during the summers. I really liked it because it wasn't so massive and was much more livable. In order to walk through it, you had to be in a guided tour, but unfortunately they only had tours in German. The tour in German was interesting because I would sporadically understand words and phrases. Especially when she asked if anyone had any questions at the end. I knew that from my language course because they constantly asked us in German if we had any questions and for awhile none of us knew that she was asking us for questions so we were always silent, but we actually did have a million questions. Anyways, it was a cute little place and a much more manageable walking tour than the previous monstrosity.

Favorite Schloss

After the Favorite Schloss, we got on the S-bahn and went to Stuttgart, which was only a 15 minute train ride.

Stuttgart Theatre

Neus Schloss (New Palace)

Neus Schloss (New Palace)

Stuttgart Rathaus (City Hall)

Concert outside the Rathaus

Chalk Artist on the Main Shopping Street