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Ludwigsburg is one of the lesser-known (at least to us) towns in baden-wurttemburg, but the bored (and cheapo) us were so desperate for a place to go on a baden-wurttemburg ticket that after a few minutes of research on the internet, we just decided on this small town about 2 hours away. The necessities were present: a residenz, a castle by the lake and a huge garden. aaaaaannndd off we go!!
the town itself was quite happening on holy saturday.. maybe it was coz the easter festivities were in the air! weirdly enough, there was tall sculpture of a snake and some wood in the middle of the road.. so outta the blue! quite unexpected haha.
the residenz was appropriately huge with a museum and gallery and we even saw a couple taking wedding pics there!
walking further into the castle, we paid for this all-entry pass and waltzed into their sprawling expanse of gardens!! the garden concept is rather cool.. there were these easter decorations made of bread (yes, bread) and fake easter eggs, an aviary where there were flamingoes and peacocks, a greenhouse of pretty flowers, a small pond with yuan1 yang1 and a boat, a 4-seat ferris wheel for the young at heart, a carousel, a japanese garden, and get this, a fairy-tale themed garden!we walked to this tower and heard these 2 kids shouting like mad at the tower in german.. and we realized we were at e rapunzel tower! so cool! there was this long pigtail hanging from it, and when the kids shouted the german phrase which meant, 'rapunzel, let down ur hair!' the pigtail would lower.. haha so fun for the kids! we tried to shout but seeing that all four of us were non-native german speakers.. we decided pictures would do. 
and after the residenz, we set off for the favourite castle, which was built by the duke living in the residenz for his mistress!!! haha so convenient la! called it favourite somemore.. it was only a short walk away and the castle was even smaller than the bruchsal one! but it did look quite pretty against the blue sky. from there, we decided against ivina's less tiring judgement and made our way to the last castle, schloss monrepos on foot. it was about 1.5km away from the edge of favourite's grounds.. and god knows how far we walked from the castle to the edge. haha. anw inese was irrepressible! full of energy, that girl.. haha. and she survived on nuts! my gdness! okay, and a chicken burger, but still! she is amazing! walk and walk and not tired at all!
and so we arrived at schloss monrepos, by the lake, which ivina claimed was built for her, i forgot why. nice picture by the lake.. quite dark, peaceful and abit morose coz of the statue, for some reason. the lake doesnt actually look like this, it has too many rowers and peddlers on it, which makes this picture even more precious.
Post-exam cruise trip! woohoo!! our international liaison officer, a very nice lady called jutta walz, organized an trip for us exchange students, cruising along the neckar river from enchanting heidelberg to small town neckarsteinach. we woke up early good friday morning to board a train to heidelberg and got on the 11am boat to neckarsteinach.. along the way, jutta, who had studied at heidelberg university (one of the oldest unis in Germany, or the oldest, i think) introduced some of the buildings to us.
the cruise lasted for about 1.5 hours.. and the boat just slowly made its winding way through the neckar, passing thru 7- and 12-feet barges and small quaint towns by the river. slow and relaxing it was..
when we arrived at the small town of neckarsteinach, it was time for lunchhh! haha.. waited rather long for our pizzas and flammkuchens and galettes.. but it was quite good! so after our rather long lunch, we had about an hour or so to our ferry at 3.30pm, so we embarked on a walk to three of the four small fortresses along the river.. breath-taking scenery along the way!! we climbed up the tower of the 2nd rather ruined-looking fortress to even greater views of the neckar valley.. haha weirdly enough, some pics turned out to have bluer skies than others.. dunno why also.
more groups photos at the scenic riverside and entrance of one of the fortresses! and yeah, we climbed up those steps.. looks quite a journey from here. haha.
so we got on board the very crowded last boat of the day back to heidelberg and there were no photos to take since we were stuck in the dining area of the boat. haha. many many kids to see in there, though. angmoh babies are the cutest!! and they have the most amazing prams here.back in heidelberg, we went on a small climb to philosopher's way, which provided great great views of the neckar valley and heidelberg's ruined castle. we, or i, finally learnt that it was destroyed coz the tower containing explosives caught fire or sth, and that pretty much destroyed the castle. anyways the climb was a biiiiit tedious and we were slightly puffing our sunburnt faces away.. but the view was worth it!along the way, flowerbeds, dwarves and sounds of 'da bian, da bian, da bian!' dotted our walk into the sunset.. third trip to heidelberg for us but still an enjoyable one at that!
