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:
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