Saturday, May 23, 2009

This Way To….


Burg Eltz…

Today we loaded up after lunch and went to Burg Eltz.  The original family (one of them…there were three “branches” of the Eltz family living in the castle at one time) still lives in this castle.  This was a beautiful example of the splendor of a castle.  Gorgeous!  My only “Complaint” was I wasn’t expecting a cardio work out today….LOL.
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We parked the van in a parking lot, expecting the castle to be around the corner….well let me rephrase this….at this point and time I  thought our borrowed TomTom GPS was a little screwy.  We drove through someone’s FIELDS and past their farm to park our van in an obscure location.  I was HOPING the castle was around the corner…LOL. 
THIS was around the corner:
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AND THIS:
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AND…..you guessed it…..more of a very windy, slippery, albeit GORGEOUS wooded trail!
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I think it took us about half an hour (UPHILL IN SNOW AND BAREFOOTED DONCHA KNOW) to get to the castle….about the time I was sure the GPS was cuckoo….I got a view of THIS and gasp:
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sidenote….do you see the castle in the background????  just barely?  That is Burg Pyrmont….we passed it to get to Burg Eltz….here’s a close up of it:
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OK…all complaining (which is half-hearted and not at all serious BTW)…today was exceptionally beautiful.  The sun was out and it was warm…even got a little toasty on our walk to and from the castle.
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OK….I didn’t know it when I took the picture of the below ruins….but this was built by some dude from Luxembourg who decided he wanted to increase his kingdom and built this fortress to seige the Burg Eltz.  This war lasted for about 5 years.   It was the only battle Burg Eltz was to ever have in its history.
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We were able to take a guided tour into the castle including the treasure room.  It was great fun and VERY interesting.  It made our studies in the past of castle life come to life for me.  It’s unfortunate that Tyler wasn’t feeling so well (headache).   I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside of the castle (such a SHAME) but bought some postcards that I’ll scan for another post.
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There was a river on three sides of Burg Eltz. 
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A look out over the land and river….
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closer…
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Closer still….
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And the VIEW:
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My sweet babies…

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I like details…..
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And on the way home….I took this picture of the road to Burg Eltz
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9 comments:

The Watts Family said...

Great Pictures!Beautiful family:-) your gonna have fun scrapping those!~blessings

Jen said...

Oh wow!!!!! Gorgeous! So jealous! ;) (BTW - I like your new background!)

Missus Wookie said...

oh love that woodland path - looks like fun to hike and the castle at the end is cool.

German castles are just soo pretty.

Betsie Morris said...

Wow! This is amazing! I miss my time in Germany. :-(

Scraptab said...

What beautiful country. And some wonderful photos of your children.

Tricia said...

Thanks for the tour! Looks so beautiful, I wish I was there. Great shots of the kids!

LucisMomma said...

Really gorgeous! So glad you have the opportunity to see that up close. I love the carving of the gargoyle thingy (the light colored thing on the wall) that looks like it's saying "OH NO!" so funny.

susan w from weaver yahoo

Jodi said...

Very pretty! Looks like a gret place to visit!

Aleta said...

I remember Burg Eltz - that walk was KILLER!! on the way back up! LOL! But I loved the tour, our guide was funny - said that the castle was never bombed because the family was always on the 'right' side! **sigh** I miss Germany...