Darmstadt

On Thursday, April 23rd, my mom, Maria and I headed off to Darmstadt.  This is where my friend spent most of her childhood and she was going to be our tour guide for the day!!!  It is only about an hour drive from here, so it was a nice drive and the sun decided to come out for us as well!!!  It was a great start to the day!!  Darmstadt holds the official title "City of Science" as it is a major center of scientific institutions, universities and high technology companies.

This is the Ludwig monument, the first Grand Duke of Hesse.  It was built on June 14, 1841 the birthday of Ludwig.  The statue was donated in gratitude for the adoption of the first Hessian Constitution of 1820 and is today one of the most famous urban monuments.

As you know many cities in Germany have different statues, for Darmstadt it is the lion.  We like lions in our family!!!

This is a statue of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse who ruled after Ludwig.  One interesting thing was he was connected through his own and his children's marriages to the British Royal Family, the Imperial House of Russia and a few other Royal Houses of Europe.

Mom in front of the castle there.  We wanted to go visit it, but found out they changed their hours and they aren't open on Thursdays.

I just thought  these were really cool!!!

This used to be a government building but was turned into a university.  It is a big university town!

Me with a lion!!!  There was a new museum that had just opened up that Maria hadn't been in so we decided to check it out.

These were really, really cool.  It is made all with wine corks!!  If you can zoom in on it you can actually see the corks.  The artist made them to teach on Roman architectural history.

This one you can see the corks a little better.

This is a Roman mosaic that was found during construction work in 1848-1849.  The center of the picture is taken up by Oceanus, the Roman god of the sea.

So when we came across this we had no idea what it was.  It looks very strange.  Lucky for us Maria was there and she could translate.  There was also a computer image nearby and this is what it was.

A bird was mummified to be buried with his owner.  I would have never guessed a bird was in there.

One of the mummies in the museum. 

This is Louis X - he had begun establishing collections in the fields of antiquities, art, technology and nature and they said he could be considered the founder of the museum.  The aim of his activities was to create a public museum "to promote true enlightenment and the spread of useful knowledge."

I liked this jewelry box, look at the legs - they are sphinxes.

I thought the boys would have loved this samurai outfit, especially since they are learning the sword in karate!

There is still part of me that is amazed at what the knights wore and how heavy they were.  Also the designs of many of them are so intricate.

This was my favorite gun - it is five barrel rifle.  There are two stands to help the person firing it.  I bet it punches a wallup!

These were made out of wood instead of steel or iron for the horse.

These were trophies that they won - the middle one they actually drank wine out of.

Can you guess what this is?!?!  It is an old time calculator - pretty cool huh?!?  I have no idea how to use it.

These are some old instruments.  The one I like best is the musical harp on the bottom, where you use your fingers and water to make the sounds.

They also had some cool fossils in this museum.  This was one big mammoth!

This is fossil coral - I thought it looked really neat!

This is the famous white tower in Darmstadt.  You can climb up to the top for a great view, we were a little pressed for time so we decided to pass on that.  We then headed for a wonderful German lunch at a local restaurant and then it was time to go back and get the children.  We had a wonderful time in Darmstadt!!!!