On the Wednesday after we got back from Blaubeuren (March 25th), we took a "Day Excursion" to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen. In the morning we hopped on the bus and headed to Ludwigsburg. Our goal there was a beautiful Baroque palace. The town is actually not that old (only a few hundred years, haha!), and this is the palace that was built (well, begun anyway) by the founder of the town, or rather, the noble that the town grew up around and is named after. It was absolutely gorgeous! I love this style, and I was absolutely in heaven, and took way too many pictures for my own good. I will only post a few here:
The palace from the outside, seen across the courtyard
Central Ballroom
The King's Bedroom (or whatever lord lived here at the time)
The original Baroque style of the palace (lots of gold, lots of fancy). Updates were made over the years to some parts in the Classicism and Rococco styles. All are pretty.
One of the aforementioned Classicism updates: beautiful ceiling frescoes
The Gallery
The Gardens. If we'd been a few weeks later, they would be in bloom... Still pretty though.I sadly come to the realization that many of my pictures are blurry (as we were moving quickly through and were not supposed to use flash), and do not do their subject justice. One might be able to get some sort of sense of it going through all 200 pictures I took there, haha, but I hope that these pictures give you at least a little bit of an idea how pretty it is. I want to live there.
Anyway, after the tour of the palace we had some free time to wander about the city (though we did not much, as the weather was rather gross) before meeting again at the Film Academy.
An important-looking building in Ludwigsburg
At the film academy some of the students took us on a tour and showed us what they do there. Apparently it is very hard to get into this school, and it has a very high reputation. It was kind of interesting to see how a film school works (each student gets a budget to produce, direct, write, animate, whatever their specialty/major is, film(s), which apparently is still not very much when it comes to the film business, and the budget and assignment lengths increase for upperclassmen), but there wasn't really much to take pictures of. It was, though, I must say, more interesting than I had expected going in.
In Esslingen, we were going to have a short tour of the old town, but the weather was so drizzly and gross that they just kind of said, go hang out in a cafe or something (which we did, gratefully). Actually they did encourage us to walk around a little bit and see stuff. We went to a cafe and had some (in my case) hot chocolate. After that we still had some time, so we walked over to the main shopping drag, walked around for a little while, and stopped in one or two stores. The weather had lightened up by this point.
In the evening, we had a wine-tasting. We went to a wine cellar in the city center, and they had dinner for us (a basic German cold-cuts and cheese with bread dinner) and 6 different kinds of wine to try. I thought it was kind of crazy that they were pouring full glasses for everything! I had about a half-glass of each. It was fun, and I think I'm getting closer to "acquiring" the wine taste, or whatever. Just enough to be able to be fancy and have wine with dinner once in a blue moon. It was helpful to learn that it is more important to me if the wine is "light" or "full" than if it is "dry" or "sweet".
After that we headed back home. A large portion of the group went out to the disco afterwards, but I decided that since it was already 11pm and we had class in the morning, it was better to pass. I was well-rested the next day. ;)
An important-looking building in Ludwigsburg
At the film academy some of the students took us on a tour and showed us what they do there. Apparently it is very hard to get into this school, and it has a very high reputation. It was kind of interesting to see how a film school works (each student gets a budget to produce, direct, write, animate, whatever their specialty/major is, film(s), which apparently is still not very much when it comes to the film business, and the budget and assignment lengths increase for upperclassmen), but there wasn't really much to take pictures of. It was, though, I must say, more interesting than I had expected going in.
In Esslingen, we were going to have a short tour of the old town, but the weather was so drizzly and gross that they just kind of said, go hang out in a cafe or something (which we did, gratefully). Actually they did encourage us to walk around a little bit and see stuff. We went to a cafe and had some (in my case) hot chocolate. After that we still had some time, so we walked over to the main shopping drag, walked around for a little while, and stopped in one or two stores. The weather had lightened up by this point.
In the evening, we had a wine-tasting. We went to a wine cellar in the city center, and they had dinner for us (a basic German cold-cuts and cheese with bread dinner) and 6 different kinds of wine to try. I thought it was kind of crazy that they were pouring full glasses for everything! I had about a half-glass of each. It was fun, and I think I'm getting closer to "acquiring" the wine taste, or whatever. Just enough to be able to be fancy and have wine with dinner once in a blue moon. It was helpful to learn that it is more important to me if the wine is "light" or "full" than if it is "dry" or "sweet".
After that we headed back home. A large portion of the group went out to the disco afterwards, but I decided that since it was already 11pm and we had class in the morning, it was better to pass. I was well-rested the next day. ;)
Main Church in Esslingen
Miscellaneous nice view in Esslingen
