10.000 Easter Eggs

My hometown's beautiful palace and its grounds have been featuring on my blog many times already, and I'll keep talking about it and showing you pictures from the park and buildings because they never look exactly the same and have their own beauty in different seasons and weather.
If by now you are tired of seeing spring pictures appear on my blog, I advise you to skip this post and wait for the next one, which will be another book review.

On the Monday after my week in Ulm, I had the day off so that it would be a complete weekend for me in spite of still having been at the course on Saturday. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm enough to be going out without a heavy coat, and my Mum and I decided it was just perfect for the park.

I don't know the name of this plant, but it looked so unusual close-up:

Some views can only be enjoyed now - you won't be able to see the statue (above, right) from the path once the foliage has grown and the plants on the ground reach their full height.

The Pumpkin Festival is a big event which was created, I think, ten or 15 years ago to attract more visitors to the park (and it works - although it is quite beyond me why people travel all across the country and pay a lot of money to see piles of pumpkins). I have posted about the festival a few times already, such as here.
Some clever people from our tourist marketing office have come up with a new idea: a Straw Sculpture Festival, to be held in spring, as opposed to the Pumpkin one which of course can take place only in autumn. 
I would never pay admission to the park just to look at the straw sculptures, but with our season's tickets, we have access to the entire park, and so walked through the straw sculpture exhibition as well. The most interesting one was this small church made of straw. Even the pews and the altar are made of straw, but I could not take pictures inside because there were people in there.

Maybe you have been wondering what this post's title has to do with it. We're getting at that now:

Again, some clever people have thought of a special attraction for the park. A tree is hung with Easter eggs donated to the park from people (individuals, school classes, knitting groups, church communities, companies...) all over the area. The condition is that the eggs have to be real ones. The aim is to collect 10.000 Easter eggs and display them on the tree until the 27th of April. At 10.000, this would make it Germany's largest Easter tree. For each egg donated, the organizers will give 50 Cent for charity. 
The last I read, there are a little over 7.500 eggs by now. I couldn't believe it when I heard the number - to me, the tree looks nowhere big enough to hold that many! Not for their weight, because of course they are all empty, and eggshells don't weigh much, but for space along the tree's branches. Well, I trust they know what they're doing. At least it was interesting to look at, and some eggs are so beautifully done; can you see the ones adorned with crocheted lace?

It was, as we had expected, a perfect day for a visit to the park. Next time I'll be there, most of the flowers will be gone from the trees and shrubs, it will all look a lot greener, and different flowers will have taken the place of the spring ones.