|
The center of the building is cored in the shape of a square, to hold a courtyard brimming with more garden life and interspersed with statuary. This courtyard can be accessed on all four sides, but the most ostentatious way to go is the grand staircase at the south end. Elevated above the ground by at least ten feet, the portico provides a view of the sumptuous gardens rivaled only by the outlook from the upper story windows.
Hardly so circuitous as the maze, but a puzzle nonetheless, the footpaths through the courtyard wind with no particular rhyme or reason, simply meander like lazy rivers of cobbling and lead the wanderer to a variety of stone benches and shade trees. The paths do all converge in one place - the center, where resides a gurgling fountain, with a statue of a cherub who has long since lost his head, and from where the nighttime view of the rows of Gothic windows up above can only be described as breathtaking.
|
|
|