There is something particularly gratifying about waking up and realizing that you live a mere hour away from a good, old-fashioned CASTLE! And not just one of the Disney variety.

So to pick up some royal decorating ideas for our new home, I donned my crown and we hit the autobahn in the direction of Schwerin - the location of North Germany’s most famous castle, set in fairy-tail manner on a small island in a big lake. (I was a little disappointed there was no drawbridge and moat – but, you can’t have everything.)

In Schwerin’s historic city center, I felt like we were taking a step back in time – wayyyy back. I almost half expected horse drawn carriages and people in powdered wigs to be filling the streets. Since Schwerin was once a great center of high thought and art (maybe it still is?), it was called the “Florence of the North”. Incidentally, Hamburg - with its many waterways - is called the “Venice of the North”. And the Schwerin castle itself is modeled after the French Renaissance Chambord castle. I quietly wondered to myself why the North Germans, with all their cool architecture and interesting city designs, didn’t just establish their own ways of being instead of trying to be versions of other places. But, another topic for another day.

The castle interior was duly impressive – typical ‘I’m-A-European-Castle’ stuff. A red room with heavy damask wallpaper and wood paneling. A blue room with heavy damask wallpaper and wood paneling. Fabulous artwork and innovative wall paintings. Parquet floors with intricate designs. And, most importantly, the THRONE ROOM. (Unfortunately a cranky guard wouldn’t let me snap photos of the gigantic red-velvet-and-gold-gilded throne.) Soenke was incredibly excited and thought this was one of the top decorating ideas for our home. He thought to call it “Soenke’s Throne Room”, with the idea that respects would be paid and dinner would be served to the man seated in the throne (him). Sadly, the Einfeldt-Crawford Decorating Committee had to immediately veto that idea.

We kept our eyes and ears peeled for “Petermännchen” – the legendary ghost who has haunted the castle for centuries. This is a particularly busy ghost, keeping himself highly involved in the affairs of the castle – hence, legends abound. He whispered in our ear that “the strawberry cake is really good at the outdoor café”, so we obliged and moved on…

Outside, the Orangerie (summer garden) was in full glory, with potted orange trees – ala Versailles – and a huge array of potted plants from every warm-weather corner of the world. During the winter, they are all moved to the surrounding greenhouse quarters. Some Greek-ish columns enclosed the garden , providing a picturesque view over the lake and its busy sailboats. Soenke admired the spinning fountain - which managed to throw off a huge amount of water in all directions, but not a millimeter past the edge of the fountain’s base (there’s your fine German engineering at work).

In accordance with our ghostly advice, we paused for coffee-and-kuchen at the Orangerie café (the strawberry cake was delicious), and enjoyed being dive bombed by Germany’s ever-present summer wasps. I’m sure Petermännchen enjoyed that spectacle – Soenke trying to flip a wasp out of his cappuccino with a fork without getting stung. Meanwhile, I pondered how we could install a big spinning fountain into our back yard.

The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing the narrow streets of Schwerin’s “aldstadt” (old city). As in every German city during the summer, there was some sort of drinking festival in progress – in this case, the Wine Festival. In amusing contrast, just two streets away was the annual Health Festival. People lined up en masse to get free blood sugar tests (not sure if they had imbibed at the Wine Festival first – I mean, why else would you allow someone to poke you with a needle when you’re not dying?).

We strolled, absorbed the healthy feeling, and simply enjoyed the camaraderie of happy Germans out on a Saturday afternoon. A pleasant lunch outside capped our perfect day, and we headed back to Hamburg feeling 68% more royal than when we left.

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Some photos of our sojourn:

What a castle !

A nice view back across the castle bridge:

A view of the Orangerie’s fountain and a peek to the lake beyond:

No really, he DOES like the strawberry cake:

That’s me guarding some rocks:

A big batch of red flowers captures my attention:

One of the many quaint alleys in town:

What a great door !

And now… a visual Autobahn experience. Now, the cars WERE really going fast, but I guess my video just couldn’t capture their blazing speed…