Schwerin Castle - Germany

After exploring Rostock, it was time to see Schwerin Castle. (Do you want to know how to say Schwerin correctly? It's shvair-een.)

Schwerin is an hour and a half drive southwest from Rostock. It's easily accessible by car and there is parking in the town.

So what's so cool about Schweriner Schloss any way? For one, its absolutely gorgeous. For two, its built on an island in the middle of a picturesque lake. We had an absolutely perfect weather day. Blue skies and mild breezes. I whipped out the camera and started taking pictures of my kids.

Say cheese!

Say cheese again!

By this point Alexander was getting tired of the photo shoot. (But isn't this cool? They have a cement wall with a life size picture frame in it so you can "get in the picture." It would have looked a whole lot cooler if Alexander's arm wasn't hanging out of the frame. Way to go Alexander.)

Can you see the sailboats off in the distance? I felt like I was in Nantucket or something. 

Until I turned around and saw this. I don't think they have castles like this in Nantucket. Early Germans built a fort on this island in 973 AD. In 1525 the fort became a castle. And a pretty impressive one at that.

Down around one side of the castle grounds, there is a grotto where small boats can launch. One of my boys shown here started climbing the rock tower to see how high he could get. He then fell in and soaked himself to his knees. I'll give you a hint who it was. It was the boy old enough to know better (Alexander! I guess that is what you get for ruining the frame picture).

I asked Matt if he would someday build me house just like this one. "Done," he said. Here I am basking in the future glory of what my new home will look like. Want to come visit?

Here are the rose gardens and orangery. 

The little island the castle is built on has a little river flowing through it filled with ducks.

On a second island behind the castle, the formal gardens stretch out. Seeing a lawn like this just makes me want to play croquet.

Here is the town of Schwerin across the lake from the castle. As we left Schwerin, I felt a little strange. We were back in Germany after almost a week in different countries. Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, and Russia. It felt good to be back in Germany. It felt like I was home. But we had to go back to the boat, go back to Copenhagen, Denmark, pick up our Volvo and drive back to Heidelberg. I really didn't want to go back to the boat. I wanted to stay in Germany. I wanted to stay where things made sense to me (Russia was confusing). I wanted to stay "home." But we were in a rental car and I had left some really cute clothes on the Costa Fortuna, we drove back to the port and embarked and headed away from where we felt we belonged back to Denmark (where people drive too slow).

Sigh...

I never really believed either that Germany would feel like home. At least a version of home that I can work with. Until next time! 

 

Want to cruise with us? We are scheduled on the Costa Serena in November porting in Italy, Spain, Morocco (Africa! Yes!), and Portugal. It's bound to be a blast!