Wow, I have actually reached October in my travel posts, which means I’m almost caught up with #Take12Trips, Take 2.
This year, we went to the pumpkin festival in Ludwigsburg again. A Finnish friend we have made in Basel (who from now on shall be referred to as The Finn) plus two friends from Karlsruhe also joined us.
As you may have guessed from the picture above, the theme this year was “circus”, or rather “The Pumpkin Circus is Coming to Town”. Apparently, that was mostly interpreted as clowns (if you don’t like clowns you may want to look away now…)
Even those who don’t mind clowns have to admit the last one is creepy. A clown throwing knives? Who came up with that?
There were a few other things as well:
This little group is called the Hubbard Family (because they’re carved using hubbard pumpkins). Personally I like to think of them as the Dumpty family because they remind me of Humpty Dumpty ! (I know he’s usually pictured as an egg and was actually probably a cannon). They’re the work of American artist Ray Villafane and the Hubbard family was featured in Ludwigsburg for the 4th time in a row in 2016 (although I don’t remember seeing them last year).
Here are some more photos from around the festival:
This year I ate pumpkin Maultaschen in pumpkin soup, orange and hokkaido ice cream and pumpkin strudel. All were delicious!
While wandering around, we spotted a bird. A survey of my Facebook friends came to the conclusion that it’s a common buzzard:
Once we’d seen everything at the actual festival, we had a wander round the fairytale garden then went looking for the aviary. There weren’t many birds around – I’m sure there were more when I went there before? It was raining on and off all day though, so maybe they were all hiding somewhere dry?
Of course, before heading home we hit the shop and bought a few pumpkin varieties that aren’t available in supermarkets plus some pumpkin seed pesto.
Despite the rain, it was a fun day out (although I thought last year’s “flight” theme had some more interesting interpretations for the sculptures!).
The festival has finished for this year since I’ve taken so long to write my post, but if you’re in the Stuttgart area definitely look out for it next September/October. This year’s festival took place from 2 September-6 November and next year’s will probably be roughly the same.
This was my October trip for Take 12 Trips 2016.
Confuzzledom 
Wow I had no idea pumpkins could be used in such numerous and inventive ways.:)
The edible ways are my favourite 😉
This is amazing!
Isn’t it?
They could have been a bit more inventive than just clowns! But they are still pretty impressive, a little creepy, but still better than anything I can do haha!
Pumpkin seed pesto sounds really tasty, have you tried it yet? My little Chopster loves pumpkin seeds so I save some from the pumpkins and squashes we eat and roast them up for him. He’s a very spoilt Hammy.
I wonder what they do with all the pumpkins afterwards… that’s a lot of pumpkins to go to waste if they just let the sculptures rot away. I assume they sell them again afterwards though.
I would love to know what they do with all the pumpkins! Not sure they’d be edible after 2 months of standing there? Unless the renew the sculptures part way through?
The pesto is amazing! We had some last year and we already demolished this year’s too. It has Parmesan in though so it isn’t vegan.
Ah that sucks! Maybe I can find my own recipe.
I didn’t actually know pesto had cheese in it… I keep trying to pick it up from the shop and then have to put it back again! Sigh. There’s bound to be some somewhere, or I make my own.
My parents went to this fest last month but they only showed me pictures of the big and heavy pumpkins. Great to see the art made out of smaller pumpkins in your images.
We saw the giant ones before they were weighed for the competition 🙂 The sculptures are more fun though.
This is fascinating!!! I love all the different ways they were used. Loved the swan one!!
It really looks like a swan! 🙂