I got this tip from an unknown men, during my visit of Castle in Heidelberg. He said that there is a garden near Heidelberg, it was built following the example of Versailles as a residence one of the electors. The name of the elector, as I later found out in the Internet was Carl Theodor (1724-1799).
I was not able to visit the castle itself because of time. You must plan at least half of a day for the visiting, if you want to see both the garden, as well as the castle. I did not know that and that’s why I decided to go only in the afternoon when the sun was not so strong .
The garden is enormous and it consists of actually a minimum of 2 gardens. The first part is one of its canals and meadows about English gardens.
There are large ponds with chestnut-lined avenues along, a beautiful white Chinese bridge, the temple of Mercury. Unfortunately, at the time of my visit the temple surrounded with building ladders, apparently because of the renovation works.
At the entrance of the temple you can see a table where a cow and a woman are displayed. At that time I did not know what does it mean, after the return home (better late than never), I found out that this scene is from a myth, according to the, Zeus falls in love with Io, the daughter of the river Inachos God, he wanted to kidnap her, but he was caught by his wife – goddess Hera. He turned his concubine in a cow to hide his plans. Hera prompted him to give her the cow. Finally, Io was amnestied by Hera and transformed again into human form.
There are many wild animals in the park. There are different types of ducks, swans, herons and others. In ponds and water channels swimming fish, some of them are even bigger than a duck.
During making this photo I had a big chance to obtain a knocking in a head by the swan-father, because I tried to approach to the children too close:
The second, French part has a geometrically balanced structure, instead of ponds and canals you can find here now different fountains, wild animals, such as herons or swans are missing, but you can see a blue peacock.
There is also the castle.