Once again, I realized that Germany is a country with very beautiful autumn leaves.
Visit date: November 1, 2015, weather: fine
To Kassel on the way to Frankfurt.
Finally, the last day of the trip. From this day to November, I will listen to a concert of the Berlin Philharmonic in Frankfurt in the evening, and take the next day’s flight back to Japan. But that’s as far as our schedule is set. Actually, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do at all until the concert on this night.
そこで、前日の夜、当日の朝にかけてガイドブックとにらめっこしながら検討した結果、前泊のパダーボーンからフランクフルトに向かう途中に「カッセル」という街があり、その郊外に[highlight]「ベルクパルク・ヴィルヘルムスヘーエ」[/highlight]という17世紀に作られた素敵なバロック様式の公園があるらしく、しかも世界遺産にも選ばれているということなので、この日の午前はまずここを観光することに決めました。
Strolling in the beautiful autumn leaves on a vast site?
I think it took less than an hour by car from Paderborn. The Autobahn was very easy to drive on Sunday morning with very few cars, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Even though we left the hotel slowly and refueled on the way, we arrived very early. But I arrived at 10 o’clock in the morning.
Parking lots seem to be scattered around the park. Many of them seem to be free places, but for the scale of the park seemed not to be so wide. In addition, it seems that there was a large parking lot in the upper part of the park, the direction of the tower of Hercules. To climb up to the tower of Hercules, it is necessary to go up a lot of stairs, so I thought it was a good idea to come here first by car.
The first thing I felt when I got out of the car was that it was cold. It’s only November, but it’s like winter in Japan. But the weather was fine, so it became warmer as we were walking. In the end, I had to take off the sweater I was wearing.
はじめは適当に公園内を散歩。とにかく紅葉がとてもきれい。この旅であらためて気づかされたのはドイツの紅葉の美しさ。ここも例外ではありませんでした。ただし、これまではどちらかというとクルマの中から、あるいは街中から紅葉の山々を眺めていただけでしたが、ここでは紅葉の中にはいって直接体験する感覚だったので、より新鮮で気持ちが良かったです。
I think that I was able to experience the autumn leaves to the fullest on this trip, which I have never enjoyed so much in the past.
« Löwenburg Castle: A Dracula-like castle, but with a lot of plastic.
Now, there are several facilities and monuments in this park. One of them is this castle.
If you look closely, it looks splendid, but it is actually surprisingly small. In fact, this castle was made for the purpose of recreating the medieval castle in the future, and it is just a decoration like a Haribo, if I may say so.
Still, it was kind of cozy and cute, and it looked like a castle from Dracula, which was pretty cool.
Map of the park in some places
By the way, this park is so wide that I almost got lost, but there are maps like this one here and there, so I checked them and grasped where I was and where I was going and went on.
« Hercules Tower: a landmark of the park
The next stop was the Tower of Hercules, which is the symbol of the park. This is located on the highest hill in the park. And a cascade (an artificial waterfall on the stairs) is flowing under it. There was no water flowing in this waterfall in this season.
If you go for this tower from the bottom, you need to climb quite a few steps. It was very good exercise. After all, the tower was under construction, so we couldn’t go inside, but the view from the hill near the tower was great. I guess the town of Kassel is visible below. Autumn leaves are beautiful as ever. I could also see the Löwenburg Castle which I saw earlier.
« Wilhelmshöhe Castle: not seen inside
Well, I went around the vast site, and I thought that I had enough time for sightseeing because more than two hours had passed, and I decided to be satisfied with the view from the outside of « Wilhelmshae Castle » which was at the entrance of the park.
However, as I found out while writing this article, there was a good museum in this castle. I heard that many baroque paintings from France and Holland are exhibited there. Oops…. I did it again. Because I really want to visit many places, I miss these famous places. That’s the best part of traveling. Let’s come back again.
Buffet lunch at a nice hotel
As I went back to the parking lot, I thought about my future plan, and I realized that I didn’t have time to have dinner because I had a concert in the evening, so I had to have a good lunch. At that time, I found a very nice hotel right in front of me that was having a buffet lunch. So we decided to have a good lunch there.
It’s a luxury hotel and the buffet is very fine. The menu is extensive, the meat is grilled in front of you if you choose, and there are many desserts.
I chose a good place.
素晴らしい紅葉とおいしい食事をたっぷり満喫できたカッセル滞在。さあフランクフルトを目指します。（続く）
