Nicholas and Alexandra

“Nicholas and Alexandra” is one of my favorite movies.  The film tells the tragic story of the last Russian czar who, with his wife and their children, was murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. 

Alexandra was the daughter of the ruler of Hesse-Darmstadt, a city only a few miles from Frankfurt.  David and I had one last free afternoon of our trip to Europe, so we drove out to Darmstadt, hoping to see the castle.  I had visions of seeing the room where the ill-fated couple met and fell in love. 

I could not find the road to the castle.  I ended up out into the countryside at a little village. As in most German towns, houses and church clustered at the base of a hill topped with a castle.  Not the castle I was looking for, but a ruin. 

I drove up the hill and parked in a grassy meadow.  David and I were the only people within earshot.  A herd of goats wandered around chewing on grass and weeds growing among the stone ruins.  David had a fine time climbing on the ruins, while I walked around, trying not to step in goat droppings and praying that David did not fall from that crumbly tower.  The afternoon was warm and sunny, a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, just not what I expected to do that day. 

We drove back into Darmstadt and found a shop, where I revived on an excellent cup of hot tea.  Maybe David had tea, too.  I don’t remember. 

I asked the shop keeper how we could find the “schloss” (German for both “castle” and “palace”).  She told me it was only a few blocks away.  After paying the bill, David and I drove to find a big brick palace, a duke’s attempt to mimic Versailles.  A uniformed guard at the gate greeted us kindly and told me, yes, the palace was open to the public but unfortunately it had just closed for the day.  If we had come 30 minutes earlier . . . .

The castle would open again the next morning, but we could not return.  Our flight back to the U.S. left the next day.  I was bitterly disappointed.

Today I took off my bookshelf “The Tragic Dynasty, a History of the Romanovs” by John Bergamini.  I read the pages about Nicholas and Alexandra and learned that I had been mistaken about the part the palace in Darmstadt played in Alexandra’s life. 

She did not grow up in Darmstadt.  Her mother died when she was six, and she grew up in England with her grandmother, Queen Victoria.  The young people met at the wedding of her sister Elizabeth to his uncle Serge, but the wedding was not in Darmstadt but in St. Petersburg.

Nicholas and Alexandra became engaged at another family wedding, not in Darmstadt but in Coburg.  During their engagement they got to know each other while visiting “Granny” (Queen Victoria) in England. They weren’t even married in Darmstadt but in the chapel of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. 

All I thought I knew about Darmstadt proved to be false.  So what?  Now I don’t regret not seeing the castle.  David enjoyed playing in the ruins among the goats more than he would have being drug through a palace with heavy German furniture and faded portraits of long-dead Dukes of Hesse.