Schloss Moritzburg

3rd August 2013 / 0 comments

On our way from Görlitz to Dresden, we stopped to visit Schloss Moritzburg (Moritzburg Castle). It’s about 8 miles outside of Dresden. The castle was built between 1542 and 1546 and it was originally a hunting lodge for Duke Moritz of Saxony.

We rented audio guides to tour the inside of the castle. There are large collections of both antlers and porcelain inside. One of the castle’s residents, Augustus the Strong, admitted that he had a “porcelain sickness” and couldn’t get enough of the stuff. He apparently also had an “orange sickness” and couldn’t eat enough oranges, either. To me, the most interesting room inside the castle is the Federzimmer or “feather room”. There are over a million feathers making up bed and wall coverings inside the room. The feathers underwent a 19-year restoration (can you imagine spending 19 years restoring feathers?) and the room has been open to the public since 2003.

I didn’t take any photos inside the castle, but if you want to see a photo of the feather room you can click here. Scroll down on the page a bit until you see the bed with a canopy attached to the ceiling and the wall coverings. In the photo they look like wool tapestries but they are all made of feathers.

When we pulled into the parking lot for the castle, I noticed this little statue called “Pferd und Reiter” or “Horse and Rider”. I liked that there were live horses just behind the statue so I took a photo.

This was our first view of the castle. It’s built on an artificial island.

I found it amusing that the word “lackey” was used twice in this little description. I don’t think the word had the negative connotation centuries ago that it does today.

I didn’t quite have my ducks in a row while trying to get this photo.

After we toured this castle, we headed over to the Fasanenschlösschen or Little Pheasant Castle, which is about 1.5 miles from Moritzburg and is part of the same grounds. It was built between 1770 and 1776 and at one time actual pheasants were bred here to be hunted. You can go inside this castle only as part of a guided tour, usually in German. We didn’t take the tour because we figured it was enough to see the inside of the main castle. One can only take so much castle-ing in one day (unless, I suppose, you live in a castle and even then you might get tired of it. You never know.)

A view of the front of Little Pheasant Castle with its double staircase.

There is a little harbor near Little Pheasant Castle with a lighthouse and everything.

This is the only lighthouse in the German state of Saxony. It’s 72 feet high. It seems that Augustus the Strong used this harbor to stage reenactments of naval battles for his own amusement. It’s good to be the king (he was actually both the Elector of Saxony in Germany and the King of Poland). Tours of the lighthouse are given only on Sundays and we were there on Saturday so we didn’t get to see the inside.

Right near Little Pheasant Castle, Sean spotted this stork nest. Did you know that stork nests can weigh up to 1,000 pounds?

We ran across this bride and groom. It was approximately 175 degrees that day (ok, maybe I exaggerate slightly) and I don’t know how they stood being in those clothes. I guess maybe since it was a joyous occasion the heat didn’t bother them but I almost fainted from heat exhaustion just looking at them.

Another view of the Schloss, from the other side this time.

After leaving the Schloss area, we saw this church in town and stopped to take a look. It was unfortunately closed but it still looked nice from the outside. This is a Lutheran church and it was consecrated in 1904. Just above the stairs, built into the wall, is a World War I monument.

I thought the little cross on top of the lamppost at the church was a nice touch.

And finally, this nice little house was right next to the church. I assume it’s the rectory or something and I thought it didn’t look like a bad house to live in.

Once we got back in the car we headed straight to Dresden, which as you saw at the beginning of this post is only 8 or so miles from the Schloss. The next post will be about the 2 nights we spent in Dresden.