Friday 23rd of December 2022
We rose to the best buffet breakfast we have ever had...and that for 5E per person at Hotel Chasalla. Well, see in the light of the cost of a small cup of gluewein between 4,50 and 6,50E, this eat-as-much-as-you-can breakfast, was a HUGE treat. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from the feast.... if we stayed any longer, they would have started charging us for lunch too!!!
One of Kassel's tourists must-sees is the 240 hectare Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe. Arno turned the nose of our rental in that direction. The work of art combining nature, architecture and landscape is designed and arranged in the style of an English landscape garden. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Europe's largest hillside park.
We parked beside the train station and started our nature walk. What an beautiful experience, especially since we were inside the car for most of the previous day.
The baroque grounds which extend from the Hercules monument down past the cascades, were created at the end of the 17th century under Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Kassel (1677-1730).
Landgrave William IX (1785-1821) had imposing water features added to them at the end of the 18th century in line with an English landscape garden.
Incorporated into the gesamtkunstwerk of the mountain park, Wilhelmshöhe Palace came into being from 1786. First the side wings - the southern Weissenstein Wing (Weißensteinflügel) and the northern Church Wing (Kirchflügel) and finally the corps de logis, the central section.
Only in the 19th century were the buildings joined together by the connecting buildings to form the present day Wilhelmshöhe Palace.The palace houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) and the Collection of Antiquities (Antikensammlung) The Weissenstein Wing was not destroyed in the Second World War. An unique collection of furniture from that time of the Empire is preserved there.
We explored from bottom to top. Maybe the harder way to do it, but we did not know that there was a different car park on the hill, at the back of the Herculeus monument. The elaborate fountains, aquaducts and streams only runs form May to September, according to a time schedule. Once down the hill, the water needs to be pumped back up the hill. Being interested in waterworks and the enginering behind the flow, Arno really enjoyed this exploration. The girls loved every photo opportunity amongst the little secret gardens and statues and Thomas was stretching his long legs by running a few cuircuts. We did not even noticed that we covered more than 10km!!
We snuggled ourselves back to our cozy car, just before the heavens opened upon us. No visit to Kassel is completed, if one has not set foot inside the GrimmWelt. This is a museum, dedicated to the life, work and achievements of the two Brotthers Grimm. As most people are aware of, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm,are the authers of most of the fairytales we know. What most people does not know, myself included, is that they dedicate their lives to the creation of the German dictionary. As we followed the letters of the alphabet inside this intriging display, we were moved through the lives and achievements, heart-aches and joys of the two iconic brothers.
The Grimm brothers spent about thirty years in Kassel. The two German librarians specialized in philology - which is the study of language in historical texts. During the early 19th century, they became interested in cultural research and began to collect and publish local follore.
They did not actually write any of the stories their name has become synonymous with. Instead, these stories existed as part of a longstanding oral tradition in Germany and had been passed down form one generation to the next for many years.
The brothers interviewed friends and family, writing down these staories to save them from extinction. Eventually, they published their collection of about 200 folklore and fairy tales between 1812 and 1822. The Children's and Household Tales, or "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" were eventually translated into more than 160 languages.
All the adventures in Kassel led to us jumping on the motorway pretty late. We were still heading north, direction Brünsweich. Still raining continuously, Arno did a brave job in driving us safely to our next destination, Villa Krause. House of Peter and Barbara, and their three children (Mirja, Linéa and Frederick). They live in the village of Schwulper, about 15min west of Brünsweich.
Our life stories started together in 2009, when we met each other in a random campsite, Münstertal, in the Schwartswalt in Germany. Nina was not even born the last time we met up in 2010. Over the last 11 years we stayed in touch - with Alana and Linéa connecting in August 2022 and travelling together for a month. Now 18 and 19 years old, it was as if they have found a soul-sister in each other.
We stepped over their threshold ( in a house they build themselves 20 years ago) and it felt as if we've arrived home!! The warm German hospitality, with Christmas candles, gluhwein and the biggest variety of German spiced Christmas cookies, had everybody smiling. We had to tear ourselves away to bed. So much to catch up on…
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