Rundāle Palace , Latvia.

Rundāle Palace, built originally in the 16th century, demolished in the 18th and then rebuilt, over the years it changed hands through death and abdication. The area was annexed by The Russian Empire and the palace was gifted by Catherine II to one of her sycophants.

Though vandalised and damaged in 1812,during the Franco-Russian war it survived

During WW1 the palace was the commandant's office and hospital of the German army. Shortly after it was again renovated and passed into state ownership, part of it was used as a local primary school, and later under Soviet rule, the larger halls were used as grain storage areas.

In 1972, an independent Rundāle Palace Museum was established, tasked to restore the palace, to how it looked in the latter part of the 18th century, the restoration was completed in 2014.

The vast gardens were modelled on those at Versailles

Dark corners

So what better way to start than in a dimly lit basement, not out of choice but some of the women in the group, needed, as some women do, to take a pee, does my head in to be honest, it has only been half an hour since a coffee stop en-route. Jesus, invest in a bumper pack of tena lady why don't you.
I mooched

There was also a coffee shop, where they topped themselves up with more fluids.
I mooched some more

Some nice funerary art.

and some lovely wrought iron screens

Big spaces

A wander through a few rooms that are accessible to the public, there weren't many given the size of the place

Used as a throne room by the former dukes of courland

Pretentious to a tee, the gold hall had its own ante-chamber, a room where court receptions and festivities started before onwardly proceeding to the main event.

The stove was made in Leningrad, as was, in the 1970s, exactly replicating the original cobalt blue stove tiles.

Originally designed as a chapel, but later transformed into a ball-room.

Ormalu meets Amarri

The elaborate, console tables, 18th-century Rococo furniture, tops of green marble, holding a pair of large, Amari( brightly coloured Japanese porcelain) style vases.

Clocks, designed in the 18th century french rococo style, horribly garish ormolu, (polished gilt bronze)

Forty-five consoles support a collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain vases, and not a spec of dust seen anywhere.

Paint on walls

"Bonaparte!, the toilets are that way, now off you jolly well fuck as I am enjoying a moment of self relaxation" said the omnipotent being

A couple of ugly kids dressed in clothing of German nobility from that era.

An era where men dressed, well, like, proper dandies

Ceiling fresco Flora, the Roman goddess of spring and flowers. lots of boobies

An allegory on Ruling, apparently. From a time when people believed unquestionably in stuff like this; looks like a bunch of naked fat kids to me.

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last bishop"

and so as everyone started to board the bus for the next leg.
Me? I went for a pee