For this Sunday castle trip, we chose to ride an hour to Bayreuth via the secondary roads and visit 3 castles in the home of all things Richard Wagner. The ride down was wonderful through little villages and twisty forest covered roads. At the primo castle in Bayreuth, Eremitage (Hermitage), we didn't quite know what to expect. From the parking lot all we could see were hedges, but some of the signage gave us a clue to the treat we were about to experience.
First here's a little history. The Margrave Georg Wilhelm began construction of a pleasure pavilion in 1715 which became known as the Old Palace. His son, Friederich, inherited the property and gifted the entire estate to his Prussian born wife, Wilhelmine. She then constructed the magnificent New Palace and other items on the grounds. She was only able to enjoy the New Palace for 9 years before she died. He lived for a few years more. For more information about the Eremitage, practice your Google Foo.
We purchased tour tickets for the Old Palace, as it was the only way to see the inside. While the tour was in German, I used a printed English guide that provided me some helpful information during the tour. The entry into the Old Castle was deliberately designed to be the antithesis of a grand entrance. One walks down a ramp and into a chamber where there is a very cool water fountain. In fact for me, the coolest part was a candelabra suspended only by a jet of water!
The rest of the rooms are wonderfully restored, but once again I'll not bore the reader with a room by room description.
After the tour we walked the grounds and especially enjoyed the water fountain performances.
For all of the castles that are compact, this one is notable for its sheer size and variety of features.
We rode back into town to get some lunch and to find the New and Old castles located there. We parked the motorcycle near where we thought the Old Castle was located and went to find some lunch/dinner. We settled on eating at a Döner shop, and it was good. We then set out to find the Old Castle, but it's location eluded us until we realized from some signage that it had been destroyed in a fire near the end of WWII. There is a statute of Maximillium that marks where the courtyard used to be. We then walked to the New Castle and it was easy to find. The Historic Opera House was nearby and we took a 45 minute little train ride around the city that was interesting. Following an ice cream treat, it was time to gear up and head back to our hotel which was an hour away. We wanted to see another castle (Plassenburg) but there simply was not enough time especially since it's one of the larger castles with at least 4 museums in it and we would be arriving there near closing time.
After riding back to the hotel, we watched a bit of the European Dancing with the Stars TV program called 'Let's Dance'. The routines were not as complicated as the American version but the judges were far more critical in their scoring. Then it was time to watch the European soccor playoffs where France and Switzerland played to a 0-0 tie.
Tomorrow we visit two more castles while on our way to visit a friend from the States living up near Leipzig (about 4 hours away). We'll spend the night there before turning back southwest towards Heidelberg where we need to be on Thursday. I'm sure we'll find a castle or to on that ride as well.
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