Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

After getting tired of WW2 history, my Berlin family and I went back in time to Frederich the Great's Schloss Sanssouci, outside of Berlin. This translates to Castle Without Care. From two different languages, but oh well. Perhaps he was getting along with the French at the time.

The first thing I noticed was that this was not a castle that was built for defense. It has wide, tall windows and a garden planted with figs and grapes. (It actually reminded me of pictures from "Babar the Elephant.") Further investigation was that he used it as his summer palace. If you like gold, you will like this palace. There is gold filigree everywhere...except where someone "upgraded" the rococo to a more modern style. And except for one room where, instead of gold filigree, there was painted metal.

I also got to visit Schloss Schwerin, in Schwerin. The highlight of that castle is the wooden floors. Inlaid wood everywhere, absolutely gorgeous. There were some really intricate designs, too...that, upon closer inspection, were painted on. Thy certainly inspried the quiltmaker in me...tought to copy those designs with fabric! There was a ceramics collection and armory from swords to more modern guns. I'm glad I went.

Sanssouci is closer to Berlin, so the tourist attraction value is high, and so it has been fully restored. Schwerin, while still gorgeous, was showing some wear and clearly needed updating. It has been painted a fairly uniform yellow, which I guess is easy. The interior courtyard, under renovation, showed more instricate painting.

My mantra this visit: I wish I had more time. To spend at the castle, to stroll the grounds at Sanssouci (which were over a kilometer long), to do everything. Last time I spent 3 days in Germany, this time two weeks. I think I could spend a year there and still not have enough time.

Photographing the interior of either castle required aspecial permit that cost 3 euro. So I bought a book instead. which means, to see what I'm talking about, you get to go poking around the internet. Plus me and the camera weren't getting along. Again.