9 Oct 2010 Beginning of Fall in Bruchsal

This was truly an enjoyable outing with the Missionary group to the Bruchsal Palace. The scenery on the way was beautiful as was the town itself. Fall has finally come to Germany with its golds, reds, magentas and oranges. There is also a vine that grows everywhere and it is a bright cherry red, I love it, have to have it in Vista.

Bruchsal lies on the Neckar River which is pretty wide and fast moving. There is a walking path along the side of it and here and there are families of swans. I could just sit and look at this site all day long, but we had to get going, always things to see, never a minute to rest. The first place we went to was the Palace which was rebuilt in 1720 by Cardinal Schonborn. Two artists were employed to design and paint the Palace, Balthasar Newman who designed the Baroque stairway that leads up to the second story, and Cosmos Asam and Johannes Zick who painted the frescoes.

As you can see from my pictures, everything is brightly colored like the palaces of Versailles. One ceiling is covered with Mythological scenes from the world of the Gods with Apollo, Athena, Ceres, Cybele, Vulcan and Diana. On the front of the Palace door is the Coat of Arms of Prince Bishop Franz Von Hutten. In 1945 when the town knew they would be bombed, they took an inventory and pictures of everything so that if they had to they could recreate this beautiful place. It was almost totally destroyed but as you can see it has been rebuilt to its former grandeur. The rooms with the chandeliers are called the Hall of Princes. All the floors are made of marble. The pictures are are of Kaiser Franz I and his wife and another is of the fall of the Titans, which shows Perseus and Andromeda and the Liberation of Prometheus painted by Zick.

After perusing the rooms we were able to take a tour through the German Mechanical Instrument museum. Everywhere we stopped we were able to hear what they actually sounded like in the 18th and 19th centuries. There were small and large organs, musical clocks, orchestrations, barrel organs and music boxes with dancing figures. We went through a sound journey of the 18th Century Salons of the Nobility and upper class, the music of the courtyards of the 19th Cen., as well as the bars and cinemas of the 20th Cen. One highlight was the silent movie theatre. Here we experienced the silent movie featuring Laurel and Hardy. The guide ran the two roll player piano with all the sound effects built right into the piano. It was so much fun to watch. I had Gene take a picture of me by the Organ that was suppose to be installed on the Titanic for her Maiden voyage but right before they were to install it, the designer, Mr. Welte, fell ill and it was left on the dock in Germany.

They had all kinds of interesting machines and they were all in working order. Wurlitzer made a few of the large band organs. They said that one of the first ones was shipped to Coney Island, NY in the early 1900's but I know another place that had one, Long Beach, CA. In the 40's when I was a girl, our family would go on outings to the Pike a carnival like place in Long Beach. There we would eat fried fish and ride on the big Merry go round. I loved listening to the big brass band and thinking it was magic how they had so many instruments in one big machine all playing at once. Nothing like it today.

We walked around town a bit and then had lunch at the Gasthaus Zum Baeren. Everything was delicious as usual. We do like German food Richard! We all got in our cars and drove back to Ladenburg, another beautiful town along the Neckar River. Our main objective here was to see the house and work shop museum of Carl Benz the founder of the Mercedes Benz., but I am going to keep you in suspense until I do my next blog, as I have too many pictures to show on each one. Until then, Tschuss.