Travelog for: Fusco

The next day Petra thought, that it is a good idea to show us a part of the palace garden, but we only had a little time and we still hope for better weather. So you only see me with the backside of the palace and with a statue.

The third photo shows the jailhouse ahead. It is a very interesting building, but hard to take photos of it, that's what Petra told me. There are "famous" murderers in this prison, what made me really feel unwell for a moment.

Tomorrow we will go to a birthday party. So I helped Petra to bake a biscuit cake. The whole family loves it, because it is easy to make and really tasty with the butter cream layers.

I had a little sightseeing tour through Bruchsal today. Petra showed me the palace again and told me a little bit about the history of Bruchsal.
Bruchsal was first named in 976 A.D, although the oldest settlement was discovered dated back to 640 A.D.. located near to the St. Peterskirche. Since then Bruchsal had been a place for Kings to visit and for Prince Bishops to live. 
In 1rst March 1945 during the second world war about 1000 people lost their lifes. The inner city and baroque palace were destroyed and the palace was rebuilt during the 70th.


palace backside



church tower of the catholic church St.Damian and Hugo, which was also baroque until 1945, but was rebuilt rather modestly. The part with the three dormers is the church.



On the left side you see the gate St. Damianstor, next to it you see the big red tower of the jailhouse. The building on the right side is the county court.



While the palace is in the flat area of Bruchsal, which belongs to the Rhine valley, the Belvedere is at the edge to the Kraichgau. It was a former hunting lodge and is now used as theatre platform during summer. Close to it a few clubs celebrate garten parties in summer too. My hosts like to go there, when there is a party of a choir, in which some members of their families are singing.

Next to the Belvedere is the oldest grammar school of Bruchsal, which uses the Stadtgarten, the park next to the Belvedere, as a school yard.


Only a few stairs down from the place before, Petra showed me some views over Bruchsal.



I just will try to remember the towers names, because I think, I forgot everything else.
The tower on the left side is the old tower of the old castle of Bruchsal, which is called Bergfried. I remember, that there is the Bügerzentrum, where citizens meet for cultural events and where also is a restaurant. Then you see the tower of the city church, which is in the inner city, where the market place is located. And at last you see the Lutherkirche, which is one of the two evangelic churches of Bruchsal.



On this photo you see the two towers of the baroque church St. Peter. And maybe you see a big building right under the crane. This building is called Sancta Maria and it is close to where I live right now.



Next to me you see the older people houses, a new one with the orange colour and the roof in the right corner and the white building behind it is the old part. Behind this white building you see the grey building of St. Paulusheim, which is a private catholic grammar school, only open for Christian pupils, because they do many religious things in their free time.



Now I'm in front of St. Peter. It is only a few metres from my hosts home to go. Petra told me, that this church is also baroque inside, but mostly it is closed.


Standing nearer to the church I had this view to the grey building of St. Paulusheim again.



Another view to St. Peter. I'm on the area of the graveyard right now. The graveyard is a very silent place with a wonderful view over Bruchsal, but it is hard for older people to walk there, because it always goes up and down.




Maybe you remember, that I mentioned Sancta Maria. This building with its nice garden is on the left side of the photo. The left tower is the City church tower and the other tower is the one of St. Damian and Hugo.

Because the weather was much better than the days before, Petra took us to her school, where we had to wait for her in the car for hours. Then she drove to Untergrombach, which is one of the suburbs of Bruchsal. The Michaelsberg, a small hill - only 296m high, belongs to Untergrombach. You have a wonderful view over the Rhine valley and if the weather is very very good, you can see the Palatine Mountains in the far.
3500 - 2600 BC first signs of humans had been found on this place, the "Michelsberg culture".



Here you see a part of Bruchsal .



The quarry pond belongs to Untergrombach, which you see on this photo. This is the best view to see the Palatine Mountains on the horizon, but today we had no luck.



You see another part of Untergrombach. You see, that it is also to the border of the Kraichgau, just the same as Bruchsal.



This nice chapel is called Michaelskapelle and it is on top of the Michaelsberg. Petra told me, that there are many couples, that want to marry in this chapel.



Here you see so-called "Steinriegel" (field clearance cairn), made by people working on their fields a long long time ago. They threw the big stones from their fields to the border of the neighbour's field, so that in the middle all stones were accumulated. Many animals and flowers love this gaunt places and that's why a few weeks ago, people cleaned the Steinriegel from all the earth, that came between the stone during the many many years and from all the other plants, that love to grow in earh.



Another word I learned is "Magerrasen" (neglected grassland), which is typical for the Michaelsberg.



Here we are still standing at the same place like before with view back to the chapel. You see the "Magerrasen".



The Michaelsberg is nature reserve area, I'm sure, you already realized this too. Soon there will be beautiful seldom flowers and animals.



We all wanted to go into the chapel and take some photos there too. It is nice baroque, not too many paintings or golden things.

Today we had to say Goodbye to some of our friends:

Elle travels to Munich now and Lucky Bunny to India. Mocke, a really new toyvoyager, travels to England and Chocolate Moose will stay at the German border to the Netherlands. I feel like traveling soon too.

Hi mum
Today two new toyvoyagers arrived and Petra said, that they - AliG and Curly - brought sunny weather to Bruchsal.





We already had some fun together. You know, it is springtime and we all are a bit hilarious. I'm not sure, how Petra will handle this







After we built this toyvoyager pyramid (have I every seen another here???), we sat down - yes, we really just sat down quietly- and listened to Holiday Harry, who told us many things about Bruchsal. It was kind of sitting in school and listening to a teacher. Petra said, that she really wondered, how Holiday Harry, this crazy monkey, remembered so much about this place.

First Petra told us everything and HolidayHarry jumped behind our backs like crazy.
This photo shows the Damian's Gate. It's the northern entrance to the palace area.


This photo shows the palace and the rooms inside. The palace was destroyed during the second world war, 80% of Bruchsal's buildings had been destroyed. The palace was rebuilt during the 70th. In the south wing of the palace the parish of St.Damian and Hugo has its church with a modern interior.


We all thought, that it is silly to take photos, where everyone can see only us toyvoyagers and the real photos only while making a handstand, so we asked Petra to take the photos standing behind us and letting Holiday Harry explain everything. He just couldn't sit quietly enough, so he had something to do now and he seemed really proud of it.


HolidayHarry told us, that there are concerts in the palace sometimes. And there is an exhibition of Mechanical Musical Instruments.


There are several events in front of the palace during spring and summer.


One of these events is the summerday procession in May, when they burn the snowman in front of the palace.


The carnival procession is especially interesting, because you can listen to the crazy music called "Guggemusik" - a music, which even Holiday Harry had been unable to explain. On the right page you see the baroque church St. Peter and the arm of Bruchsal. The flags of Bruchsal are in front of the old town hall.


Each Wednesday and Saturday there is a market in Bruchsal, where you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables and flowers. You can also buy plants for the garden.


On the left side you see the limestone building of the Pallottines' private grammar school St. Paulusheim, built in 1923.


The Belvedere, a former hunting lodge, was built in 1758. It serves a very fitting background for open-aur plays.


This left building is really interesting, but not easy to take a photo with it. It is the men's prison of Bruchsal, built in 1841 and called "Café Octagon".


The baroque church St. Peter: Cardinal Schönborn began the building in 1740 and Cardinal Hutten completed it and had the interior finished. The architect was Balthasar Neumann from Würzburg. The church holds the remains of the last prince-bishop in a cryp.


I realized, that I already knew some parts of it, because I heard them on our tour through Bruchsal

Happy Easter to you!!!

Hi mum!

We all thought, that we maybe would have better weather now. It started to be so nice, when we arrived here in Bruchsal, but I think, that I have to travel to a far away place to stay in the warmth. It is only warm in the house, when Petra heats the oven in their livingroom. Yes, and today it was really warm in the kitchen, because we all helped to bake a biscuit. It was really crowded in the kitchen.

This was the place we had to sit down at first, because Petra had to get everything prepared.



Then everyone was allowed to hold the stirrer for a while. Wow, I think, if Petra wouldn't had been there to help me, it could have been really dangerous for me. I had been trembling from head to toe.


Then I wanted to help to stir the flour under the dough.


While we waited for the cake get ready in the oven, we wanted to walk into the garden to take a look at the flowers there.










This is the basket, in which Petra carries us around, when she takes us to other places in her house. She says, it is the only way to carry so many toyvoyagers. If you wonder about the amount of toyvoyagers, that are here right now: Petra just started to find several hosts in Asia, Africa and South America. And now she activated many toyvoyagers and of course she wants to make some updates, before they start their travels. It is really exciting to hear about the places, which they plan to visit soon.


Finally the cake was ready - ok, not really ready, I suppose. Petra talked something about butter cream and chocolate icing. So I will see, how the cake looks like later.

I safely arrived in Austria today. I'm staying with a funny family with 3 little boys so I guess I will have an exciting time here.

I'm a bit tired from the long journey but I was told that we will start sightseeing soon!

Too bad that I missed Sputnik and Eldon which left just this morning but I think I will have fun anyway and my host told me that she is waiting for another TV to come here.

Fortunately I found some new friends here in Austria: Cekelat the funny bear from Malaysia and PampleMoose arrived here and we are having a great time together.

We had to spend a whole weekend at a hospital. Oh, don't worry, noone of us was ill and nothing serious happened. But our host had to work there all weekend and we joined her. We had great fun playing "doctors" - the 3 of us quickly found out that we are all healty toyvoyagers. PampleMoose examined me and as you can see I took some blood of Cekelat.

We made a little walk on a hill outside of Vienna. The weather wasn't so good but we had a nice view down to the city anyway...

Today something really exciting happened. Our host woke us up very early in the morning and put us in her bag. PampleMoose, Cekelat and I were a bit frightened at the beginning because we didn't know what was going on there but then we were told that we were about to go to the airport because we went on holiday!! Imagine, I've already travelled alot in my exciting toyvoyager life but I never had the chance to look out of the window of the airplane so far. What a great feeling - and what a nice view down to the clowds! We had no idea at this time where we were going to - otherwise I would maybe not have been able to stay that quiet in the plane.

When we got out of the envelope we soon recognized that the place where we arrived wasn't in Austria anymore. We have already learnt some German and the people here were talking completely different. I don't know why it took me that long to notice it but suddenly I realized that I was back home!!! We were in France again! Nobody can imagine my feelings at that time!! I was sooo enthusiastic and happy and I talked and talked and talked without thinking that all the others weren't able to understand any French. But it was sooo nice to be at home again!

We did alot of sightseeing in Paris! Have a look what beautiful buildings we saw. But it wasn't important for me what we visited just the fact that we were in France was important. So we passed by Louvre and visited Eiffel tower...

Since we only stayed in Paris for 2 days there was really alot to do for us. We visited the famous Arc de Trioumphe (we even went up there -more than 280 steps, but the view was really beautiful) and saw "Moulin rouge" the famous night bar. Fortunately the métro in Paris is very fast so we were able to get everywhere easily

We even went up to Montmatre where we saw this beautiful church "Sacre coeur" and from where we also had a very nice view down to the city. We also visited the "Place du Bastille" where this column reminds to the old castle which was built there a long time ago.