One of the things Ken and I decided that we HAD to do before we left Germany, was to spend the night in a castle. We found one, booked it, and headed that way this past weekend. It was Gutenfels Castle, Kaub built circa 1200. It had a beautiful situation on the Rhein river overlooking the Pfalzgrafenstein Castle of which was located in the middle of the river. I will not bore you with details of the history of the castles themselves but only with the story of our stay.
The view from the castle garden.
We arrived around dinner time on Friday evening and noticed that a small town called Ruedesheim seemed like a good place to start exploring. When we arrived there, most things had begun to close for the evening. We found a small restaurant serving up German foods and sat down to a table. When the schnitzel and sauerbraten was finished up we decided to tour the town to kill time before bed. It had alot of charm but nothing that I would call spectacular. It was dark and beginning to get late so we packed the kids in the car and were off to the castle!
When we unloaded, Carissa looked up in awe of the building. This was a huge love of hers, castles and princesses. She looked on for a bit then asked if I thought there was a dungeon. I told her probably because that is where the dragon lives. I then proceeded to tell her and Celia that they needed to be on their best behavior. The queen did not like bad little girls breaking things in her house and if she found little kids jumping on beds and screaming, she would surly send them to the dungeon with the dragon. Laugh or shame me if you will about my parenting skills but, my kids have never been better behaved in all their hotel experienced days!! They whispered upon entering the gates so as to not wake the queen from her sleep and never stopped whispering the entire night and morning. They did not once jump on the beds (which is usually the favorite thing to do immediately upon arrival), and did not fight or pick on each other.
The Castle was beautifully old. The interior common area was an open square with balconies filled with red geraniums, and a tower that loomed overhead. The doors to the halls were intricate works of art with door handles that are beyond explanation. There is just no way to do them justice and if I were the thieving kind, I would have loved to take several home with me. The rooms themselves, were not elaborate, just very old. The were furnished very simply with a king size bed with a small and simple headboard, and built in bunkbeds of medieval style. The floors squeaked with every step. I do not think even a mouse could have walked without being heard throughout the entire castle.
The interior court area of the castle.
I really began to understand the pains of living in those times. The beds were hard and the pillows so flat that it took 4 folds to make them good sleeping height. There was no shower (just a bathtub), clock, or television in the room. There was not even an outlet for a hairdryer in the bathroom. (O.K., so there was one in the room and I was able to dry my hair from there but I still had to do it blindly.) What was a girl to do? (please note: insert a joking attitude in here!!)
The next morning we went down to the great hall to eat our breakfast. We had the entire hall to ourselves at the early hour of 8:30. Again, thinking the queen may come to join us, the kids were beautifully behaved. No queen showed and we started our day.
The dinning hall of the castle.
The girls and I next to the moss covered walls outside the castle gates.
We drove up the river north towards Koblenz stopping and taking pictures of various castles. I was quite shocked at how close they were together. One maybe every mile or two. Must have been their equivalent to a housing addition back then! They graced both sides of the river and the towns look so unique and charming. Of coarse, most of those were on the other side of the road. We came upon the Marksburg Castle which I had wanted to tour. It was listed in the books as one of the most preserved castles in Germany. It sustained no damage from the wars. We waited for our guided tour in German and set off. About half way through we came to the kitchen which was filled with smoke from the days cooking. There were people dressed of medieval costumes showing what life was like. I was fascinated by a lady spinning her own wool into yarn. Since I could not understand the German guide I focused my attention on her. Turns out she spoke English and so I began asking questions about her skills. By the time we were done talking, our group was long gone, we were lost, and I had found a new hobby. Ken and I tried desperately to find the rest of the group. We looked up every staircase and in every open door. Just as we were about to give up the next tour group emerged from the kitchen. We decided we would just sneak into it. They came out and immediately went into another locked door. (turns out we did not explore EVERY door) Ken tried to hold the door open and follow in but the tour guide was very adamant about us not joining and pulled the door shut behind him. This left us stranded again. Seeing how it was almost noon and the kids were getting restless, we opted to go find lunch and skip out on the rest of the tour. In all, we had seen 12 of the 17 rooms.
Koblenz was our next stop and it was a rather large city. We quickly found a shopping mall open until 8 pm but headed for the city center instead. We had our time shopping and exploring when it started to rain a bit. Thinking of the drive back, we called it quits. Near the car we discovered a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) pile of leaves. I saw a perfect photo opportunity here. The kids and I had a little fun playing and shooting pictures in the leaves.
The drive back to the hotel was interesting and we stopped off in several small towns that stuck out on the drive up. It was late on Saturday evening (well, after 4 anyway) and everything was closed up. The next bridge that crossed the river was back down in Mainz which was south of our hotel. Knowing it was a large town we figured it would have stores open until 8 pm. We guessed right. Along the way we came to a Wal-mart! What luck! We were able to waste most of the night away there before going back to the hotel for another squeaking night of sleep.
Sunday morning after breakfast, we packed up and headed home. There was one stop ken wanted to make along the way. He just HAD to get a picture of a sign for a town named ” Assmannshousen”. We had a flyer put on our car for a restaurant nearby there named “Dinkelsack”. Ken swears the Germans name things just to amuse him! And the two together made us question the obsession with lower parts of a male’s anatomy in this area!
I wanted to stop off in Ruedesheim once more at the off chance there were shops open. I was in luck! We walked up a very busy side street to find a overwhelming number of tourist shops. I picked up a few things and Ken was able to find some wine sporting the name of his now most favorite town, Assmannshausen.
On the way out of town, we grabbed several bratwurst (see, sometimes we eat more than just McDonald’s) from a local vendor. Strange how good they are to us now and how I actually enjoy eating them. The kids gobbled up theirs as well and it was smooth sailing all the way back home. The trip home was perfectly situated at nap time and so the kids slept most of the 3 hour drive back.
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