Ludwigsburg Pumkin Festival was the perfect fall outing. Fall is here, colorful leaves, crisp breezes, and pumpkins !
Ludwigsburg is a town that is part of greater Stuttgart in the northren area of the city. The palace in the towns center is absoultly gorgeous.
On the grounds of the palace every year they hold a pumpkin festival. The German word for pumpkin is Kurbis, which a very kind German woman taught me while I was looking for the festival.
They select a theme and thousands of pumpkins become sculptural works of art revolving around the theme. This year's theme was To The Stars.
There were aliens, spaceships, zodiac signs (they all have constelations) and other famous celestial bodies.
The palace grounds are very expansive, there are floral gardens with fountains
a beautiful rose garden, natural area with educational challenges and learning stations,
as well as the story book gardens for children with rides and sculptures depicting famous fairytales.
Within the storybook garden there is even an area to feed/visit with goats,
something that the kids really liked. T & H of course are seasoned goat visitors, however this shaggy goat was a first for P & S. S thought that this goat was a dog and kept calling "puppy ( or poppy as she says) and petting it rigously. P just chatted away to the goat making faces and inching closer to sneak in a quick pet before running off. I have a feeling this goat is so used to kids nothing would phase him, he never moved other than minor adjustments despite all the kids.
The pumpkin sculptures are woven into the palace grounds beautifully.
Different weekends feature different activities; the weekend we visited was the heaviest pumpkin contest.
I couldn't believe how big some of the pumpkins were, it took a fork lift to move the contestents into place.
Wandering the breathtaking gardens on a beautiful sunny fall day is a perfect family outing.It helped work out the cage craze the kids have felt being confined to home. There was a hay loft for kids to play in and roll around, as well as a large playground.
While wandering through the exhibits on the boardwalk there are small stands to see pumpkin carving,
shops for fall items like pumkins, and food stands to sample some pumpkin treats.
Food was completly centered around the pumpkin, there was pumkin soup which was delicious and P's favorite. Our family sampled the pumpkin rice vegatable dish, which was S's favorite with chucks of stewed pumpkin. Then the pumpkin spagetti which was a favorite with T & H. For desert, pumpkin filled struedel, freshly made it was so delicious. Sam and I even ventured to try pumpkin sparkling wine....which was more readily availible than water or juice. One of the things we are adapting to, water of any kind is hard to find out and about. However beer and wine can be purchased anywhere at anytime.
Ludwigsburg is beautiful and I know we'll make another trip to explore the gardens again, and see about the tour of the inside of the palace !
Happy Halloween !!!!! While there were gourds and unusual pumpkins galore at the festival
we have yet to get pumpkins to carve hopefully by Halloween we will have those pictures for you!
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