Karlsruhe is a small and quiet city in Baden-Württemberg, formerly known as the home of the Federal Constitutional Court of Justice.
We spent a few hours in the city, the major attractions being relatively close to each other. If you arrive by car, you can leave it right in front of the palace in the underground parking lot, and from there walk to the Marktplatz or the gardens surrounding the imposing building. Below I leave you some places we saw in Karlsruhe.
Karlsruhe Palace, built in the Baroque style between 1715 and 1718, is set in the center of a huge circular garden. Karl III Wilhelm, the founder of the city, built his residence so that almost all roads led to the palace. Until 1918, the building was the residence of the main Dukes of Baden, and in 1921 it was turned into a museum. Today, it houses an important collection of prehistoric artefacts from Baden-Württemberg and displays of weapons, furniture and porcelain. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday (10:00 – 17:00) and the price of a ticket is 12€/person (the archaeology part and the collections) or 5€/person (only the collections).
In the gardens surrounding the palace are numerous sculptures, along with monuments and fountains dating from different periods of German history. In addition to these, the water lily lake, the pheasant garden and the mini-railway attract daily both locals and tourists who want to relax in a less hectic place.
The architect and urban planner Friedrich Weinbrenner conceived the design for the Marktplatz – the city center square and complex of imposing buildings such as the Evangelical church and town hall – in the early 19th century . This plan was titled “Via Triumphalis” and is now seen as a masterpiece of neoclassical urban planning, and apart from a few modern signs it looks very much like it did when it was completed 200 years ago.
In the Marktplatz is also one of the identifiers of the city of Karlsruhe – the Pyramid that houses the tomb of Karl III Wilhelm. Considered to be the second emblem of the city after the castle, the pyramid was built of red sandstone and is 6.5 meters high, inspired by Egyptian Renaissance architecture.
The Natural History Museum was first opened to the public in 1785. Over the years, the collections have been expanded and today include exhibits in zoology, entomology, mineralogy and geology. The skeleton of a giant salamander, discovered in 1726 and named Andrias , is also exhibited inside. The price of a ticket is €5/person.
From Karlsruhe, on the way to Stuttgart, we stopped at the Technical and Automotive Museum in Sinsheim. A fascinating place for fans of cars, planes, locomotives or motorcycles (ticket price: €17/person).
Driving along the A6 motorway, two of the supersonic passenger aircraft can be seen in the distance, a Tupolev TU-144 (built by the Russians and entered service in 1968; it was the world’s first commercial supersonic transport aircraft) and a Concorde (built by the British and French; it had a maximum speed of 2,180 km/h and could fly from London to New York in less than 3 hours, today it can be reached in 8-9 hours). The Sinsheim Museum is the only place where both aircraft are displayed and are fully accessible to visitors.
Another attraction is “The Blue Flame“ – the fastest racing vehicle of all time. On October 23, 1970, a world record was set, when a maximum speed of 1,014.656 km/h was reached.
The vintage car show is known worldwide with over 300 vehicles from all eras. Most of the exhibition pieces are on loan from members of the museum’s funding association, so the exhibition is in constant movement and development. From historic racing cars to electric cars from the Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, Ford, Opel or Peugeot collections.
In addition to the classic cars, another permanent exhibition is the Formula 1 exhibition, which features a collection of racing cars that made history and served some of the most famous Formula 1 drivers.
Another beloved collection is “American Dreams Cars” – luxury cars with huge, shiny bodies and huge engines. The Technik Museum Sinsheim features the largest collection of American cars in Europe.
In 2019, a new hall of the museum was opened, which will house the special exhibitions. The opening exhibition called “Mythos Alfa Romeo” provides an overview of the history of the Alfa Romeo company and can be visited daily between 9 am and 6 pm until January 6, 2021.
If you are into all things technical and automotive, another similar museum is the Technik Museum Speyer, 50 km from Sinsheim. We haven’t been able to visit it yet, but it’s on our list.
(Karlsruhe – May 2020)
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