Castle after castle...

Jessica Post

We had another eventful week here in sunny Germany! This is what an average morning around here looks like:

And actually it stays foggy until mid morning, usually. Though the past couple of days haven't been too bad.

We decided that since our Honda wasn't going to get here for another few weeks, we really needed some form of transportation besides relying on nice people for rides - it would make house hunting a lot easier, at least. So we looked and found this lovely 1990 VW Jetta! It only had 70,000 miles on it (shocking, right?) and it's in really good shape. And, bonus bonus, Jettas are my favorite kind of cars. Though, to be honest, this is my first time seeing one so old haha. It's a very European car, which is good, and fits down the narrow streets without hardly any problem!

Isn't it beautiful? It's the same color as my old Toyota, too!

Regan and I still go for walks almost every night. The other day, we got a little turned around in our village - this is kind of hard to do, considering how small the village is. We found ourselves on a walking path with lots of interesting modern art sculptures near it. This one was by far the most...unique:

Quite lovely. Yes.

Oh dear...

Also this week, Regan finally took me to try a Doner Kebab! I'd heard so much praise for them that I really thought they were going to be awful! Maybe that doesn't make any sense...

There is a small Doner place just down the street from our hotel!

It was huge and I couldn't eat it all...but it was really good! And that's even despite my wind-blown bangs! Amazing!

This weekend, Regan and I decided to go see some of the local sights! We have a car now, so we wanted to use our freedom to move about on our own! We have a map that shows on it things like castles and castle ruins, observation towers, and things like that. We spotted an observation tower with a panoramic view on the map and decided that was our destination! It just so happened that a small village called Hohenecken was between us and our tower. And what luck! Hohenecken has some castle ruins to look at! So we stopped to investigate:

Here are the castle ruins in Hohenecken! It was pretty cool. You could walk all around them and there was even an information sign in English!

Here we are with a lovely scenic view of Hohenecken village behind us!

Then it was off to the tower! Or...so we thought. As it turns out, our map wasn't very detailed and after getting completely turned around in an annoying village called Dansenburg (which apparently also had a tower, though we failed to locate it), we decided to head for home. Unfortunately, we overshot our exit on the Autobahn a bit and ended up in the charming village of Landstuhl! I really like Landstuhl. I would be super happy if we end up being able to rent something there. Anyway, we knew Landstuhl had a castle (word of mouth, plus we could see it from the road) and decided to go to it to satisfy our disappointment at not finding our tower. I didn't mention this with the first castle, but it seems like every one we go to, you have to park at the bottom of the hill and hike up. I seem to always forget that until we start hiking.

Here we are in front of...something...at the castle! I really need to learn German.

This is the view of Landstuhl village from the top of the hill where the castle is. There is a really neat little cafe right next to the castle that has lots of outdoor seating with this fabulous view. I really want to go eat there sometime!

So after all of that, we finally made it back home. That was yesterday. Today we tried for our observation tower again! We left straight from church, and I tried my best to follow the map down to where it supposedly stands. No luck. We drove for about 30 minutes before I finally found our position on a map. We were in the tiny and remote village of Waldleiningen on the narrowest road I've ever seen in my life. The countryside was really beautiful! But...the road was really scary. Some people were driving way too fast, and there were lots of bicyclists (which I found very strange in such a remote, mountain area). We finally made it to the village of Elmstein, where we could make it back to a major road. And, as an added bonus, my map said that this town boasted some castle ruins! So we'd get to see something, if not our tower. Unfortunately, the ruins left much to be desired.

Yup. That's it. I'm guessing it used to be a part of a wall. Who knows. And the worst part is that after we hiked all the way up to it, we couldn't even get close to it because it was 1) on the side of a cliff and 2) completely surrounded by private residences! My question is, why, if it is impossible to get close to, does the town even play it up as a tourist attraction?? I have no idea. The funny thing? The first two castle ruins, both of better size and location, do not have their own wikipedia pages. This one, however, does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmstein_Castle

There was a lovely view, though! And the village its self was very cute.

And in case you're wondering...no. We never did find the tower. I'm determined, now, though. I WILL find it! Maybe next weekend...