Adventures in Euroland: Day 5

Das Schloss!

Tour of the castle. It was amazing!

There are a couple different parts to the Castle. There was a church building, walls around the castle, a newer finished part to the castle, a tower, a keep, and a part that was being renovated. The castle has been built a few different times, having been destroyed or having parts of it destroyed since it was first built in 1050 A.D. WOW.

I cannot explain how cool it is to be standing in something that old. It was also very creepy. You just get a weird feeling being around/in something with that much history attached to it. As I mentioned before the castle has been burned down or destroyed several times, it was used as a prison and has a dungeon, so many people have died there as well.

To the left are pictures of the inside of the furnished and finished part of the castle itself. (I think you can click on the pictures to pull up a full sized version) The dining room, a mosaic on the floor, etc. Everything was very elaborately and richly decorated. It was a mixture of Gothic, Neo-Gothic, and Rococo architecture and interior decoration styles.

 Not a single detail was overlooked. Even the ceilings were richly decorated. I have pictures of carvings on the wood paneling, of tiny details EVERYWHERE. At some point I will put up a gallery and link to it, but for now here are some of my favorite pictures from the castle.

Here is a picture from the library. It's hard to see because it was pretty dark inside the castle, but all of the wood work was carved with incredible detail.

 One of the family lines who lived in the castle at one point had a swan as part of their crest. I think it looks more like a Flamingo because every time you see it is painted red, or the red has faded to kind of a pink color. If my Aunt Doni had a family crest, it would probably be a flamingo and look something like this. :)

 Here is a real honest to goodness Treasure Chest. The D&D side of me couldn't resist getting a shot of this.

Family lines and crests of 'Lords of the Castle'.

 A more detailed family record for families who have owned/occupied the castle at various points throughout history.

This stuff also made me think of my Aunt Doni, who works for the Repository dealing with illegal imports of animal products into the US. She sees stuff like this all the time, except usually more exotic. Aside from the antlers everywhere they even had serving dishes and utinsles made out of deer hooves!

Some really neat examples of armor on display.

 Another shot of the outside of the castle.

 My favorite part of the castle were the unfinished parts. The battery tower and the keep were both carved stone like this and unfinished. The tower used to house cannons for defending the castle and prison cells. I got the strangest vibe from being in the tower and the tower basement. The tower featured the spiral staircases you usually see when people draw or make movies about castles. Well, they really do have spiral stair cases in towers like that, although the steps are a lot more narrow than I would have guessed. It's hard to tell, but I tried to take a picture of my feet on the stairs. I have pretty small feet and not even my whole foot fit on the step at close to the widest part of the stair. It made climbing the tower a tiny bit nerve wracking, but still VERY COOL.

Spiral Stair Case of AWSOMENESS.

 Very old, very steep wooden stair case in the keep tower.

More stairs to the top of the keep tower.

Looking out over the castle gardens and to the north-west from the keep.

The castle as seen from the keep.

The church steeple as seen from the wall near the keep.

The keep itself. This part of the castle is roughly 30 meters high and you can climb all the way to the top and look out between the crenelations. The walls are 5.5 meters or 16.5 feet thick. (Yes, they really are that thick. You can see how thick they are when you look out the windows of the keep from the inside) I didn't get a picture of it, but at the ground floor there is a square hole that was roped off and had a grate over it. I later read that this is called an Angstloch or "Fear Hole" and that it goes straight down over 12 meters into the dungeon. There are no lights and no windows in the dungeon and the only way in or out is via a wench that used to be installed directly over the hole. In Medieval times it was used as a prison. In more recent years it was used as a gun powder storage room. Either way, it was a very dark hole and gave me the chills.

I spent a good two hours just roaming the grounds looking at everything and taking lots of pictures. And after I left, I still didn't feel like I had taken enough. The tour was only 3,50€ and WELL Worth it. I wish I spoke German and could have taken the tour, but the lady in the office was kind enough to dig up a guide book about the castle in English which she let me have. :D On my way out I told her "Dankeschehen! Es ist wunderschön!"

Here is a picture of the inside of the church.

I also included this picture because Nick and I had a conversation about how people probably take for granted that they live in a city (or even in a country) which has historical sights that are older than our nation. Like, "Oh... yeah, I pass the castle on my way to school or work every day. Its no big deal." We don't have things anywhere near as old as this that are man made in North America, but as you can see by the graffiti on the door to this prison cell in the Battery Tower, people over here don't seem to take notice....