Burg Eltz (and a glimpse of Burg Pyrmont)

Today we traveled an hour and a half north to visit Burg Eltz which is located between the cities of Trier and Koblenz along the Elzbach river (which is a tributary of the Mosel). Burg Eltz is one of only three castles west of the Rhein that have never been destroyed. It was built in the 12th century and has always been inhabited by the same family that built it - for 33 generations and counting. Part of the family still lives in part of the castle today.

We parked in the town of Moselkern and hiked up to Berg Eltz on a nice path through the forest - I highly recommend approaching the castle in this way. The path was relatively flat but it did end with a bunch of stairs up to the castle:



Some pictures from the little courtyard of the castle:





Not sure what the cannonballs were used for - the castle is surrounded closely by hills. Maybe they would just fire them into the hillside? Thankfully they were never attacked to find out.



Some pictures of the castle from different angles and paths around it. It was really nice to see a castle that wasn't in ruins! Wish we'd had some sunshine but it is almost fall in Germany which means the clouds are starting to settle in for the winter.







Martin taking a break on the hike back to the car:



After we left Burg Eltz we decided to try to see another castle, Burg Pyrmont. It was about a 20 minute drive from Burg Eltz but when we got there it was closed for a wedding! So much for being spontaneous - if we had planned to go there and checked their website we would have known it closed at 2pm for a wedding every Saturday in the summer. But here are a few far-away pictures of the tower:

Summer in the Pfalz

I apologize ahead of time as most of these pictures are of wine schorles (actually some of them are juice schorles because when we're on a bike ride we split one wine schorle and one juice schorle). But that's what summer in the Pfalz is all about - wine festivals. Below are pictures from the Eselshautfest in Mussbach, the Ungsteiner Stadtfest, the Seebacher Kerwe, the Schmitt Hoffest, and the day the wine route is closed to cars and open only for cyclists. Plus a few extra pictures from the summer. This blog post has a little bit of every thing.

I thought the Eselshautfest had the best glasses but we couldn't take any home because we biked there and had no way to carry them:



These pictures are from the Schmitt Hoffest. Each winery has a little party in its yard every summer and this was at the Schmitt winery. I had this amazing Flammkuchen that was filled with garlic. Amazing. And I saw some really fun clouds on the way there:





This was a little celebration in part of our town that had some country line dancers! One of them was wearing a skirt with American flags on it but you can't see it in the picture below unfortunately. This is the only time I've seen country line dancing in Germany! The announcer even called out all the moves in English.



Another little town festival on a gorgeous sunny day:



From the day when the street is open only for bikes. It was cloudy and rainy but we still went for a bike ride:



And the sunflowers in the vineyards by us! And some flowers from the Bad Dürkheim town park and a picture of me at a restaurant where we ate one day to break up a bike ride. Thankfully we bike to all these wine festivals to burn some of the calories we gain at them.

Hiking Hambacher Schloss - Sankt Martin - Kalmit loop

Let me just start out by saying that it was cloudy with rain showers today but we really wanted to get out and hike so we went anyway. But, the pictures are all pretty dreary. This hike had a lot of great spots to sit and enjoy a snack or a wine schorle with a great view. It would be a great sunny day hike. 10 miles, 500+ meters of elevation gain.

We started the hike at Hambacher Schloss, which is a cute little castle perched on a hill above the town of Hambach. I didn't take any pictures there at the start but took some at the end. We wandered down into the vineyards from the castle and walked a mile or two south to the town of Sankt Martin. Every house and building there had flowers on the windowsills and in some areas they just had planters filled with flowers lining the street. We definitely want to get back here just to wander around a bit more and to enjoy the cosiness of the village.



The flowers in the picture below right were just next to the road in front of a B&B.



Just south of Sankt Martin is the Kropsburg ruins. We hiked up to them and of course there was a little restaurant there along with some little vacation cottages.



From the ruins we headed uphill for a few hours through the forest. We found wild blueberry bushes! I picked a few and they were good.



We finally reached the highest point of our hike, the Kalmit. This peak had the usual restaurant at the top of it, and a commanding view that would have been much better if it wasn't raining out when we were there! Here's the usual wine schorle picture with Martin trying to eat his sandwich:



A picture of the restaurant, which actually had a varied menu compared to some other restaurants in the woods, and another picture of the view:



We found a big rock table with wooden benches on the way back down to Hambacher Schloss. There were also several spots where you could sit on a bench and enjoy the view on the way down including another restaurant! I held back from taking more pictures of restaurants though, and we did not stop for a second schorle on this hike unfortunately.





Some weird spiky things we saw on a tree.



Hambacher Schloss as seen from about a mile away. Almost done!



Some pictures of Hambacher Schloss. We didn't go inside as we were too tired and would have had to pay for it and then wait for a tour to start ... we'll save that for another day.



Some views from the Schloss. It was fully raining on us when I took these: