Today the weather is so so beautiful, that we decided to go on a walk through Bruchsal. Bruchsal was first named in 976, so the city is rather old. Nevertheless there are only a few old houses, because during World War II. about 80 % of the city was destroyed.
At first we walked through the citizens' park. Here you see the medieval tower and a part of the community centre.
The tower was built in 1358 and is the oldest building of Bruchsal, which belonged to the old castle.
We walked through the Huttenstraße with its beautiful old houses.
Then we arrived at the baroque palace area. All these houses - about 50 single buildings all together - belong to the "new" palace of Bruchsal. In the far you see the Damian Gate, the end of the palace area.
We're now standing in front of one of the three entrances to the palace church called St. Damian and Hugo. From here you can see the county court, the Damian Gate and the tower of the jailhouse. The building on the left side houses the chamber music hall.
Inside the church you can see these plates, which show the palace during the years. It was built in 1722, started by Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schoenborn and finished in 1760 by Cardinal Franz Christoph von Hutten. On the top photo you can see, how it looked like after World War II. In the last photo we were standing just in the corner, which you see in the middle of this top photo, between main building and church.
The church wasn't rebuilt in baroque style. It is really modern. Somehow that's sad, but the costs were just too high.
Here we are at the backside of the church. You see, that the tower isn't directly next to the church.
This is the backside of the palace. In summer there are weeks, when they play open air theatre and in winter there is a second Christmas market since 2 or 3 years.
This pond is a place for ducks. Children love to go there and feed them.
Next to the main way through the palace garden you find a lot of statues. At one crossing you see in each corner one statue of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Here you see the statue fire.
In one side of the main garden you find a small rosegarden.
TV_TV, Mausi and I play in the arcades.
Back in the mainpart of the palace garden again we walked through a large chestnut-lined way. We found some chestnuts on the ground.
When we were in the mainway again, we came to another crossing. The statues in the corners show the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn. Here you see summer.
We walked through a small gate, which you can see on the right side of the next photo. Here you see the mainbuilding of the palace.
At last we read something about the palace history. It is a bit small, I'm not sure, if you can read it here, too.
This is the county court with the Amalienbrunnen (fountain).
The Amalienbrunnen is called Schnecklesbrunnen ( in Bruchsal dialect), which means snail fountain.
A last view back to the palace with the part, that houses the chamber music hall on the right side.
In the Damian Gate you can visit art exhibitions.
Here's the jailhouse of Bruchsal. It is a very interesting building, at least from outside. There were and are some "famous" prisoners in it.
I also read something about it here:
Then we walked to the hospital with its beautiful old part with the small tower. In the far you maybe see the statue of a nun. We will go there at next. There is the entrance to the small hospital chapel.
Here's the back side of the hospital.
The hospital is next to the prison, which you can see here again from the back side.
There are some beautiful old houses next to the Stadtgarten, another park. This house is one of them.
In the park I saw this beautiful lime tree.
This fountain is called Ferdinand Keller Brunnen. Behind the fountain you can see a part of a grammer school called Schönborn-Gymnasium.
The Belvedere is situated at the other end of the park. It was a former hunting lodge. Nowadays it is used for open air theatre during summer, too.
From this point on top of the Andreasstaffel you have a wonderful view over Bruchsal. You already have seen the medieval tower. The next tower belongs to the City Church Our Holy Lady and the next belongs to the Lutherkirche. The houses, which are in one line right in front of us, belong to the Huttenstraße. We had some difficulties to take these photos, because the sun was shining so brightly.
Here you see the baroque church St. Peter in the far. If you take a look at the middle part of the photo right to the edge to the wood, you can see a big house. This house is called Sancta Maria. It is school for social education and it is still home for Franciscan nuns.
The buildings right in front of us and the white building in the far are all part of the old people's home. The big grey building behind the white is another grammer school called St. Paulusheim.
I read something about this place too. The weather wasn't good enough or maybe it was too good, so we had no chance to see the Palatinate Mountains today.
Once more we saw a beautiful house next to the Stadtgarten.
Here's the St. Paulusheim. It is a private grammar school, founded by patres of the Pallotti order.
The wall to our right side still belongs to St. Paulusheim. In the far we see St. Peter again, where we will go at next.
The church St. Peter is located at the edge of the graveyard. It is the only church, which survided the bombing on 1rst March 1945.
We took a view back to St. Paulusheim.
Then we went to read about a memorial stone and about the baroque church.
The view into the Petersgasse is our last photo of the walk through Bruchsal. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
