Castles & Ruins

Friday, March 12, was the last day of the Nekowitsch vacation to Germany.  Overall I think it was a productive week for sight seeing.  We went to three countries (Germany, France, Netherlands), saw three castles (Heidelberg, Hohenzolern, Marksburg), one castle ruin (Kastellaun), two grand cathedral (Strasbourg Cathedral and the one in Heidelberg), one palace (Ludwigsburg) and one museum (Mercedes).  Our challenges were freezing weather, the loss of a day to snow, and my late arrival when I returned a day after they arrived, and Brad's early departure, leaving a day before them.  It was definitely a week to remember.

Plus, I personally went to four new cities (Strasbourg, Kastellaun, Braubach, & Amsterdam) adding to my New Year's resolution of a new city every month this year.

But this blog is about our last day - specifically Marksburg and Kastellaun.

Shelly below Marksburg Castle.

Marksburg Castle is the only hill castle on the Rhine that has never been destroyed.  The most damage it ever took was when it was shelled during WWII by Americans across the Rhine.  Built in the early 13th century, the castles has huge outworks (3-1/2 meters wide) that were strengthened after firearms began to be used, including the addition of canons to it's defenses.  Because of these defenses it was never seriously attacked, never burned down, never rebuilt.  It is one of the most original castles left and was lived in for over 700 years.  Because of this history, the cool name - it's your castle Mark - and the location near our return route from Amsterdam, we decided to stop here.

We bought tickets for the next tour after we arrived, and ended up with some women's group (or hen party, as Brad would call it).  We were hoping we'd be the only ones in the group and the guide would give us the tour in English, but that wasn't meant to be...  The tour was in German, though the guide would give us a short English recap and we were given English guide books to read along the route - you can see me here with one of them.  The medieval roots of this castle were really interesting, a favorite for us all was the armor room which shows armor as it changed throughout the centuries (Andrew below is in one of the metal helms).  One thing I found interesting is the castle entrances were changed after gunpowder resulted in the abandonment of the large armor knights would wear - the entrance was reduced in size for two riders to pass abreast - a smaller entrance since the riders and horses no longer had the heavy armor.  A fact I found very odd was this castle was used as a prison for about 70 years in the 1800's.  For over 100 years it has been the headquarters of the German Castle Association.

After Marksburg we hit the road again on our drive back home.

Going to Kastellaun Castle was an impromptu decision.  We pulled off the highway looking for a restaurant, but there weren't any at that exit, though there was a sign that pointed the way to Burg Kastellaun.  Reading the description in my Schenck Castles & Gardens Guide I saw it was open March to December with no admission, so we decided to head that way.  Kastellaun Castle is really castle ruins located in the middle of the Kastellaun city center, the former Sponheimer Castle.  There is a museum set up on the castle site, but since the placards were all in German, we opted to not go through the museum but instead wandered the castle grounds.  The ruins were awesome.  We all enjoyed scrambling around, taking pictures and looking in all the nooks and crannies.

In addition to the museum there is also a large church right next to the main site, you can see one of the castle walls in front of the church.  There was a restaurant also, but it wasn't open yet.

Since by then it was almost 5 p.m., we walked around town a little bit and then found a place to eat supper - more traditional German fare.  One of the challenges here is almost all the restaurants close between 2 p.m. and don't reopen (or don't serve hot food again) until 5 p.m.  While we waited we found a bakery where Shelly bought us all some awesome braided cinnamon, raisin, other good stuff bread, which we saved for the next morning, though we all enjoyed a sample then at the bakery.

We noticed throughout the town more stonework like at the castle.  There was a sign by the restaurant we ate at that explained these walls were all part of the original castle - this was a very large ruin and went well into the town.  I think the ruin was one of my favorite things from the whole week.

(You can see Jess in her purple jacket climbing over the ruins in some of these pictures if you look close enough.)