FAMILY HISTORY GENALOGICAL CONFERENCE-ERLANGEN
POMMERSFELDEN & SCHLOSS WEISSENSTEIN
Friday, Saturday and Sunday we attended The National Genealoglical Conference in Erlangen, GE. This is held annually in different cities. Erlangen is just north of Nurnberg. We had a great booth with the largest most colorful display, which I was able to help put up. It took us 5 hours with 6 men to complete the task. During the day while the paid staff gave lectures and answering questions from those attending, Sister Walters and myself along with Sister & Brother Heselschwerdt from Stuttgart manned the computers. Sister Walters did indexing all day since we do not speak German and I gave out passalong cards. I could not believe it but I took cards in every language just in case and do you know, I gave out two in Portuguese. I am amazed that the Lord knows what we need to have to accomplish our jobs.
The group which consisted of 12 people ate dinner together every night and talked about making the program run better in Europe. The first night we ate at a German restaurant and I mean it was authentic. On the menu was lung and entrails. I passed on that even though it did have gravy. The next night we went to a Chinese restaurant. I must say, they do have good Chinese food in Germany. For dessert we had fried bananas with honey. It was fun eating all together. After the first day we drove to Palmersfelden to tour a beautiful palace called Weissenstein which means, White Stone, and sets above the village. This area is called Franconia which has a Baroque flare. Arch Bishop Schonborn of Mainz built this palace. He also resided in his other palaces in Bamberg, Aschaffenburg and Wurtzburg. This particular palace was financed with his own money and so it is still owned by the family today.
It is said that Prince Schonborn was talkative, fun loving, smart and had a good understanding of people. He had a great love of art, especially paintings and architecture. He began collecting works at a young age and today it is considered one of the greatest private Baroque collections in the world. As we walked through this palace the collections were massive. We first entered the palace which had a beautiful three tiered staircase with statues and ceiling frescoes. It was not as large as Wurtzburg but just as beautiful in muted tones of pink and yellow.
A closer look at the paintings gave us an idea of the extent of his collections. Painters such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyke, Durer and Titian along with other German, Dutch, Flemish, French and Italian artists. I understand that music festivals are held here free of charge in the summer months. We took a tour of the palace and sorry to say we could not take pictures but I do have some of the pictures I found in a brochure that you might enjoy. I can tell you it was well worth the 6.50 eu to get in. One of the rooms literally took my breath away. It was beyond garish. It had blue undertones and completely decorated with things in nature such as glass, stones, feathers. There were even running fountains in there. They said when the temperature got too hot outside, the guests would come in to refresh themselves. I think I would go crazy if I stayed in there too long. But very interesting. This room was used as a back drop for the new movie that just came out called, "The Three Musketeers".
Back to the hotel and up early for another day of Family History.
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