A Royal Playground
A Visit to Hellbrunn Castle, Salzburg
Now this is what I call height of decadence. A splendid, elegant castle that was built and used purely for entertainment. Nobody ever spent a single night here! Hellbrunn Castle, the 17th century playground of Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus, is unlike any castle I’ve ever visited. And I’ve clocked up quite a few castles at this stage of my travels, believe me.
Not only does the castle boast numerous elaborately decorated reception rooms, it’s chock full of all kinds of weird and wonderful oddities. At the time, there was a craze for mythical and fantasy creatures and Markus Sittikus obviously also caught the bug. He even had a real unicorn on display!
It looks to me that this was a guy who had more money than sense. Then again, I suppose it’s not unlike the fashions of today, what with the mania for fantasy films, superheroes, Harry Potter this, Lord of the Rings that… Some things never change.
I thought it rather ironic when I read that, for all his joie de vivre, ‘melancholia and depression’ had contributed to the Prince-Archbishop’s death at the early age of 45.
I’m always game for anything that involves water, so I was excited to hear about the unique entertainment fountains at Hellbrunn. Markus Sittikus had apparently first come across similar fountains when travelling in Italy as a student, and he had dozens of these fascinating features installed in his pleasure palace simply to amuse and confound his guests. I was certainly amused and confounded!
The first installation I saw in the ‘garden of water wonders’ – a dining table with chairs – was a tad predictable. As expected, those foolhardy enough to take a seat at the royal table were soon drenched, with jets of water spraying them from all angles, even from the seats of the chairs. However, as we strolled through the gardens, I was surprised and delighted to see the Oldies repeatedly getting soaked with water at the most unexpected moments from the most unexpected quarters. They were shot at from the prongs of a stag’s antlers, from the mouths of statues, from under the floor or from hidden holes in the walls of various decorative grottos they were exploring. Water, water, everywhere… and most of it directed at the witless Wingless Wonders. Hilarious!
One of the grottos looked like it was on the verge of collapse. ‘Pity they didn’t get around to restoring this one’, I thought. Then I realised that it had been originally decorated to look that way on purpose. Talk about special effects! It was like being in a 17th century Disneyland.
There were various carved wooden automata, such as a dragon being slain by a knight or a potter working at his wheel. They reminded me very much of the Slovak Bethlehem we had visited in Rajecka Lesna, but with one major difference – these ones were all powered by water. Quite amazing! The highlight was an incredible cabinet which opened up to show a huge town scene with dozens of different characters moving in and out of the buildings performing various activities, and all put to music – which was partly to mask the sound of the water-driven mechanism. As a wooden character myself, I could only stare in fascination – and a little enviously – at this phenomenal piece of engineering. I wish I were as agile as some of those wooden townspeople!
It is quite astounding that these installations are over 400 years old, powered only by an elaborate hydraulic system combined with natural water pressure. Come to think of it, with renewable energy sources so much in demand nowadays, it might be an idea to take a closer look at this ancient technology.
We were about to leave Hellbrunn when Her Ladyship let out a squeal of excitement. She had spotted the original gazebo from the film ‘The Sound of Music’ in the castle grounds. You know the one – where the young lovers sing the duet ‘Sixteen going on Seventeen’. ‘Uh oh’, I thought, ‘here we go!’ Sure enough, she broke into song.
Tuneful, it was not. Embarrassing, it most certainly was. But at least she sang from the heart. And honestly. ‘“I am sixty going on seventy…”
