Wilhelmshöhe Castle
This castle was Wilhelm II’s summer residence. It was affected by WWII, and then was rebuilt very quickly after the war, as there was very little construction to be seen. The castle itself looked great and put together from the outside. It is a good castle to visit to see how Wilhelm II used to live.
The interior of the castle was built using a lot of marble. Many of the different rooms even had different colors of marble. From pink, to white, to blue, I thought it was beautiful. They have many of the original and handmade furnishings, and it seemed like Wilhelm II was also a big fan of hand-carved woodwork. Every room had some kind of furniture or decoration consisting of intricate and precise details. He clearly wanted things to be spectacular and perfect. For example, the tassels on some of the window curtains were actually made of wood and hand cut before being added to the curtains. It took 18 years to make all the tassels for this set of curtains!
In another room, there used to be a fireplace and chandelier, that when lit, would bounce off a mirror in the room and create a disco ball-like effect. Many of the rooms also featured some kind of timepiece. They were located on various mantels, but each was unique from the other, many had French origins.
They also showed off his banquet hall and table. The table could hold 20 people, and it was fully decorated. It definitely looked pretty elegant. I also found out that Wilhelm II had 4 kids from his legitimate wife, and then he also had 2 affairs. One affair produced 8 kids, and the other produced 13. So he had a lot of children to put it simply. Interestingly, his wife and one of the ladies he had an affair with were both named Caroline, except one was spelt with a “C” and the other with “K”. In the writing room of the castle was a desk worth several 100,000 dollars because it was very thick and sturdy, and didn’t use aunty venier helping it prevent scratches and chips. His bathroom was a real treat. It had a heated floor, and a marble bathtub. The tub was like something I’ve never seen before. It was made of black and white marble laid into the floor, with steps that led into the tub. Kind of like a hot tub at a hotel where you take steps down, but this was deeper and looked more fancy. Our tour guide said that Wilhelm never used the bathtub though because they had troubles keeping the water warm enough, the marble would absorb so much heat so quickly. Next came the bedroom, and then a library. Again, it was a prime example of how the castle was built with so much fine attention to detail. The library, however, had a crack running across the ceiling. At least from our tour, this was the only obvious sign of WWII on the castle. The crack was caused by vibrations from nearby bombs and destruction during the war. Eventually, we found the throne room. This room is still used today for weddings. It was very elegant! Apparently these days for weddings, they don’t allow guests to wear high heels in the room though, because the wooden floor is soft enough the heels will leave dents. Speaking of wooden floors, the woodwork is all original through the castle, and in many cases each room even consisted of a unique pattern on the floor, adding some variety throughout. With that all said and done, our tour came to an end and we prepared for home.
All in all, the castle was pretty cool. There is clearly a lot of history to it and Wilhelm, and the castle grounds are truly just spectacular. For these reasons, it isn’t surprising that people compare the castle to the Versailles in France. Our only regret here is that we couldn’t see the water features functioning. With how amazing the grounds were this time, we can only imagine how much cooler they would be if the huge fountains and waterfalls were in operation.
Löwenburg Castle
The castle was built in the mid 1800’s and looked very cool from the outside, but we were only able to see 2 rooms on the inside, due to the castle being under reconstruction. It was destroyed a fair amount during WWII by bombs. While some staircases remained, the main tower of the castle had been completely destroyed. It has since been rebuilt, but they say it will take 4 more years to finish.
Although we only got to see 2 rooms, it still felt like we got to see a lot. For example, we got to learn that Wilhelm was a huge fan of the middle ages. He had an entire room dedicated to the various suits of armor worn by knights during the middle ages. There was even a life-sized replica of a horse with a fully put together suit of armor on display. The horse was covered in authentic horse armor from 1552, you do not get to see that every day. The rider even had an original lance, which was 3 meters long. It was pretty cool! They also had on display a couple chainmail vests. We were told the mail weighed about 8 Kg and the armor weighed about 48 Kg, so in total a light was almost 50 Kg heavy when wearing his armor. I also thought it was interesting, and I never heard this before, but suits of armor did not have boots. The wearer would wear their normal footwear, and the armor would simply cover it from the outside. Knights did not have to put their feet into any armor.
After the armory type room, we went and saw the chapel. It was supposedly built to act as Wilhelm’s future lying place when he died. Even though a lot of the castle was damaged during the war, the central stained glass window was not! However, at this moment they are waiting for it to be delivered from restoration. Inside of the chapel is also a trap door. Our tour guide said it is possible to walk into the crypt, however, for health reasons they don’t let people in because the air is supposedly so contaminated with bacteria that people could become sick. When he died, he was buried, but later his body was excavated to be embalmed. Also, behind the chapel altar, was a marble statue of Wilhelm in a suit of armor and a beard, because that is how he wanted to be envisioned by others. Even though Wilhelm was protestant, the chapel was still built to reflect some Christian values. It was also cool to see the little lion heads which acted as armrests of the various pews. The chapel also contained some original paintings, but sadly, the painting on the ceiling was painted over at some point.
Wilhelm also used this castle as his weekend home.
The castle itself is located within a park. The park is quite large, and also very beautiful. You could walk around for a couple hours before seeing everything. In our case, when we arrived it was raining! It always rains when we go somewhere!! Still, meandering through the park gives a lot to see. There are many different streams and ponds to stumble upon, and in some cases even tiny waterfalls. Our favorite one was where the devil’s bridge was. It is a beautiful silver looking steel bridge, over a natural waterfall feature and beautiful greenery. The park is just so pretty. We could have wandered through it for hours.
After finishing up with the castle, we went to a special monument called Hercules, after the greek god. The monument itself is very impressive, maybe one of the most impressive one we’ve ever seen. The monument is a small castle/tower that sits atop a hill in the park, and atop the tower is another pyramid tower (it looks kinda like the Eiffel tower from a distance). At the top of the pyramid is a statue of Hercules, looking over the city of Kassel. Leading up to the monument is a cascading waterfall feature, where the water starts from the top and falls into little pools/steps until it reaches the very bottom. On both sides of the waterfall feature are steps that you can take to get to the top and see the monument up close. One of the reasons I find this monument so impressive is because of how it looks, but another reason is because of how it made me feel. It was somewhere around 700-800 steps total, going from the bottom to the top, and by the time I was done, my legs were on fire and feeling ready to cramp. It’s that uncomfortableness that makes the place even more impressive to me, because I overcame the steps and the work needed to enjoy the top, and so it’s like a double high as I overcame a challenge and got to see a spectacular view! Unfortunately for us, the water feature was not functional. We found out later that they have the water turned off right now because of COVID. I don’t really understand why it needs the water off because of the virus, but that is their reasoning. We also later heard that they do turn the water features on once a week, but they do it randomly and they do not inform the public when it will happen, so you just have to be lucky in the current situation.
