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All that glisters is not goldJun 9, 2009
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| Monday 8th June. Today we said goodbye to Ralph and John who had baked us some farewell Yorkshire scones to eat on our way. This was our third present in twenty four hours as Ralph presented us with a bottle of Merlot and the owner of a fabulous local restaurant, Speiserestaurant Sophien-Klause, gave us a pen in a Xmas box! Our destination was Shloss Moritzberg, which featured in a local brochure of castles of Saxony. The picture showed a beautiful Baroque palace set in the middle of a lake and the write up extolled the wonderful gardens open to the public for free. The place seemed to be in the middle of nowhere so we took Nora out of retirement and gave her another chance. Forty minutes later the road tuned into a long straight green avenue, which led through the village straight the Schloss. The village was beautiful with wide herbatious borders to the sides of the road and two rows of typical local houses at attention either side. Half way down was a stunning local baroque church with an ornate timber spire with an imposing set of stone stairs up to the entrance. The road ended and the drive started in a straight line with the Schloss some two hundred yards ahead. The car was parked and the parking machine refused to allow more than one hours parking so it would be necessary to return to top it up. By the gates was a line of horse drawn coaches each with up to 12 seats awaiting patrons for a trip through the town and into the woods. We however were here to see the gardens! Walking up to the Schloss our dissapointment with the building was pretty obvious. Although it appeared to be baroque it was flat plastered walls with all the architectural details painted on, even what appeared to be individual stones were painted. Not only that but all the walls were cracking and the whole building was covered with scaffolding. We walked on to see the fabulous gardens and found not one single flower, no parterre, not even one decorative hedge to relieve the gravel paths and grass. The whole area could have been contained in Ockwells park, which, by the way, is more interesting. The wind has been blowing a gale for about a week and although much brighter it was not the weather to be hanging around in. so back to car without extra parking fee and started north again via the motorway. We have ended up in a gasthaus at Rosenthal near Hanover without a plan for tomorrow although we did go into the local town of Peine tonight for of all things an Indian! |
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