Wandering Where We’ll Be

So…We made it to Baden Baden, Germany. Now…where is our accommodations? After about an hour after getting off the bus “near” our temporary abode, Sunshine Apartments, we finally found it; even some locals we asked didn’t know where it was or even where the street it was on was. Now, how do we check in? After about 20 minutes looking for an entry desk or anyone with a clue, Tim goes to try to phone the appartments. His phone card doesn’t get through. We ask a local who lives near there if he can help us. He uses his cellphone and calls the owner. She’s there soon (seems she was about a block away). We thanked the guy who helped us. The owner of Sunshine Appartments apologizes profusely and then shows us to our appartment for 2 nights. It was an actual furnished appartment..nice. We generally relax for the evening and do some exploring in the city as well as have apfel streudel (apple strudel) with eis (ice cream) at a local restaurant. It was tasty. The next day, we hiked to Altes Schloss, castle ruins I saw on a hill/mountain outside of town while hunting for Sunshine Appts yesterday. These ruins were fantastic! I love castles of any kind and these ruins were “upkept” as ruins for the tourists/public for FREE. We walked the tall walls, went in a big dark cellar, climbed a tower, walked through many “open ceiling” rooms, walked the old knights hall, and lots of other places in this castle. It was big. I loved every minute of it. The views were fantastic when looking out over the city and surrounding countryside.

Okay, yes, Baden Baden had a few other sights to see.

How about Paradies (paradise). Heaven? On earth?

Well, it is a garden with downhill flowing pools of water and many flowers and some paths. This was very pretty but we went on to the next destination…the graveyard. After all, a person can’t go to paradise without dying first right? This graveyard is different than any graveyard I have ever seen. There’s a grave stone, as I pretty much know them, set in the back of a square plot of land about 8ft x 8ft. Within these plots of land are flowers, shrubs, vines, trees, whatever, all landscaped in. I’ve seen grave plots of land in the USA that have nice “manacured” grass and a pot of flowers and maybe a statue or two but these grave plots put them all to shame. They are all upkept really well too. All of them are next to each other and each is very different from the other. It was all very pretty. We went and explored a church after this (ho-hum another church ;). It was Russian Orthodox and very ornate but small compared to other churches we’ve seen) as well as other parts of the city. It was all very nice…but the castle we visited whetted my appetite for more castles.

So, next, we went to St. Goar on the Phine.  Talk about castles!  Rheinfels Castle, a ruin in St. Goar, was HUGE!  I thought Altes Schloss was big.  I was wrong.  Rheinfels is a warren of casemates (covered halls for soldiers that are dark and have arrow slits looking outside for defense) tunnels (some only 3ft high or less underground- we went through some of these..glad I’m not claustrophobic), big cellars, a museum (it had a model of the original castle grounds before the French blew alot of it up and guess what, it was more than double the size of the current ruins we can explore now)  I used to think castles were linear.  1st floor, 2 floor, 3rd floor, basement, lower dungeon seemed to be the norm for castles.  Nope!  Because they are built on irregular mountains (at least these are),the “floors” are wherever the ground was or below it.  So “ground floor” might have several levels with tunnels, covered walkways, halls leading to 1st, 2nd or whatever floor and stairs whether straight and very narrow, spiral, or any shape, exist going to other parts of the castle that don’t make any sense.  Castles aren’t built all at once; they are built in sections, in different times, in different styles.  This might seem “well duh!” to you but for me, even though I’ve done “castle” maps for my games many, many times, I didn’t “get it” ’til now…lost in a castle, disoriented and confused…it was great!

Okay, on to MORE castles.  How about a day trip on a boat up the Rhine to Marksburg castle.  Did I mention we have to hike up mountains to get to these castles (not too high but hundreds of feet keeps the leg muscles up).  This castle was never ruined and is in it’s original state.  The inside furnishings are still there.  The outside garden is still intact.  It was very cool to see what old castles are supposed to be like “way back when”.

Now, I better back up.  The day before we went to Marksburg, we went to Bacharach.  This is a wine-country town on the Rhine.  It has a castle that is now a hostel and we partially got to go in it.  The town had ruins of a large chapel and a really nice-not in ruins-church.  We think the town may have been celebrating “Bachus” festival.  Bachus is the Roman or Greek (not sure which) wine god of debauchery, revelry and wine.  We saw the beginning of a race in their town square.  The square itself had a hanging big crown with vines beneath it shaped like a wreath.  It was all in all a nice little town.

Okay, to get to Bacharach and Marksburg, we travelled by boat on the Rhine.  Did I say there were more castles to see as we passed them on this boat?  Of course I didn’t, so I will list them now.  Maus castle, Katz castle, Sterrenberg castle, Liebenstein castle, Gutenfels castle, Pfalz castle, Schönburg castle, Stahleck castle (in Bacharach).  Not to mention Loreley, a big out-cropping of rock mountain that has wrecked many a ship.  Apparently, a heart-broken maiden, sperned by her lover, threw herself from the top of this cliff and then was turned into a nymph/siren.  She would sit at the top of this cliff and sing, while naked, brushing long blond hair, beautiful vision of loveliness as ships with all male crews would go by.  They would be so entranced by her; their ship would crash on the rocks and sink and many would drown.  Later, after the son of a castle owner died because of her, men were sent to capture her.  She was captured and thrown in prizon.  Somehow, she escaped.  End of legend as far as I know it and who knows if I got all the details right.  Anyway, we left St. Goar for Cologne.

BUT, I wasn’t done with my castle fix yet.  On the way,  We took a train to Berg Eltz, a castle nearby St. Goar but on the Mosel river.  It also was totally intact and, if anything, better than Marksberg castle.  We had to hike about an hour to get there and an hour back but it was worth it.

Okay, now even I am “castled out” as you probably are just by reading this.  I don’t want to see any more castles for awhile.

On to Cologne…but in another blog.

Cheers,

Dan

Tags: Europe

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