Kassel to Celle

 A lovely day today. The weather is pleasant and our journey has also been very pleasant without being spectacular. Much like yesterday really, many lovely farming villages and perfect back country roads meandering through rolling farmlands and woodland forests. For several km the road was lined with lovely oak trees, very nice until I considered the possibility of having to take evasive action at some point……I stopped thinking about it then. 

Our destination is the town of Celle which we didn’t know too much about but it is a gem. After checking into our hotel we walked through a lovely park into the old town.  

We visited the palace dated back to the 12 th century. It is now a really beautiful museum. 

There are many pieces of period furniture in place and some of the cabinets amd bureaus have staggeringly beautiful inlaid wood patterns. The last permanent resident of this palace was Caroline Matilda the sister of King George III. 

She married the Danish king but was a bit naughty with the royal physician so ended up divorced, estranged from her kids and basically banished to Celle. An extraordinary tale and this year happens to be the 250th anniversary of her death aged 24 so there is a special exhibition to mark the occasion. The front lawn has 250 effigies of Caroline Matilda, plus a large number of paintings on display. 

We then entered the old town proper which is like entering another time and era  Most of the buildings are termed half wood houses and most date back to the 17th century. 

What is really nice is they are all still in use in a modern sense, with the ground floors all occupied by modern shops and restaurants and the upper floors are offices and accommodation.  

There was a church from the 13 century which looked pretty ordinary on the outside but beautiful on the inside. 

We wandered around for ages then when our legs said enough we sat down for refreshments and then found a Turkish restaurant for dinner .

Anyone heading this way? Celle is well worth a visit.