Germany: Castles!

This is our last day in the Mosel Valley and we are going to get the Most-el out of it!  I will now wait for the reader to catch their breath after that incredible joke...

This morning we drove about an hour northeast to fairytale-looking Burg Eltz.  It sits upon a wide hill within a narrow valley of thick forests and has remained virtually intact for the last 700 years.  It has been owned by the same family for over 800 years!  The remaining main family branch still uses one of three original houses (the castle was originally built to be a home for three brothers and their families, with each residence an independent "tower").  The rest of the castle is open to the public for guided tours and has been decorated with original furnishings from the last 500 years.

 

In the 1300s the lords of Eltz had a feud with the Prince-Archbishop of Trier
and so a siege castle was built on the other side of the valley.  

After five years of unsuccessful and "annoying" cannon attacks the feud ended.

Unfortunately, photography was not allowed on the tour but we were able to take pictures from the impressive yet small courtyard.

The parking lot is about a half mile away from the castle entrance.  Along the walk we spotted some very pretty low-growing wildflowers.  The castle itself had a very nice terraced garden.

An hour further east in the town of St. Goar are the ruins of the mighty Burg Rheinfels.  This castle dominated the Rhine River for over 500 years.  It was torn apart by French Revolutionaries in the 1700s and like many ruins it was plundered as a quarry.  Today there are remnants of former structures and a hotel has been built into one of the remaining wall structures.  During our visit we had to avoid certain areas because of restoration work that was being done but the small museum on the grounds did a really great job of detailing how massive the place used to be.

This cavernous room was used for wine storage.  That's a whole lotta wine!

How it looked back in 1607

It was now getting to be late afternoon and I was in the mood for a pick-me-up.  We drove down into the village and stopped at a nice little cafe for some drinks and snacks.  We ordered a bread a dip plate and a freshly made pretzel and it was all top notch.  One of the bread dips was made with curry, which was unexpected but it also wound up being our favorite.

 

That's pretty much it.  We weren't terribly hungry for dinner after these snacks so we stopped at a Lidl store for some bread, cheese, and salad that we took back to our hotel in Cochem.  It was a couple hour's drive back so it was nice to have an evening with zero plans.  On YouTube we watched a documentary about sightseeing in Germany's Black Forest area (where we're heading next) and learned of the very strange resort called Bader Alm.