Halloween at Frankenstein's Castle

So there is actually a castle in Germany called "Castle Frankenstein". It's just a ruin now but it used to be something more, obviously. Several decades ago, some Americans found out that this castle existed and they decided that there should be a Halloween celebration at this castle. So, for three weekends every fall, there is a Halloween "haunted house" at Frankenstein's castle. It's all outdoors, just wandering around the ruins, so it's not an actual haunted "house". There are about 100 "monsters" there who follow you around and scare you. And, since we're not in the US anymore, they are allowed to grab you, touch you, put you into a coffin or cage, etc, without you even having to sign any legal paperwork. Crazy, I know. No worries, parents, there is a special mid-afternoon "family time" at the castle where the monsters are supposedly gentler and less scary...

The castle ruins are divided up into different areas - there's the food/drink/dancing/party area, which is monster-free (usually), and then there's the monster area where you go through a forest filled with wolves, a swamp filled with swamp things, a serial killer area complete with the Texas chainsaw guy with a chainsaw, some sort of viking or "big scary woolly guy" area, etc. Every year there is a theme and this year that was "freakshow" so in the main area there were stalls like at a carnival where you could play some scary games and there was a stage set up where the freakshow monsters performed every half hour or so. They danced to thriller in one performance, of course.

This is the only picture I took of the castle ... just one side, with a few purple spotlights on it. We arrived right at sunset so the daylight faded quickly. Also, the castle is in the middle of the forest so unless you drive a few miles away you can't get a shot of the whole thing.



Below are some pictures of the monsters, most taken while they were on the stage as that was the only time they weren't attacking you so you could get a decent picture. Most pictures below are courtesy of our friend Christian Winter, who came with us and brought a nice camera and took the best pictures.



These two guys were willing to pose for a few pictures, which was nice. I was actually a little disappointed by the lack of scary clowns at a freakshow-themed event but I guess I was confusing freakshow with circus or carnival.



My iphone didn't capture this well, but the guy sitting up on the chair here was super scary. And you never knew when he was going to hop on down and grab you. This was in the "big scary guy" area. Maybe they were cannibals? Whatever - big scary guys.



This guy took Martin's hat. He took a lot of people's hats, actually. He would hold it out then when Martin went to grab it he'd pull it away. He probably had the most fun job of all the monsters. We decided the swamp monster had the least fun job, as that person had to stand in knee-deep water all night long. I'm just glad the swamp thing only splashed us and didn't drag us into that gross water. (sorry no pictures - he was too scary to stop and take a picture of I had to get by him as quickly as possible!)



One of the towers. This would have been much spookier if the people up there were real and moved every once in awhile. But they weren't. I waited a long time for one of them to move though.

A Walk in the Woods

It's fall in Germany! Near peak foliage, actually, which here means mostly yellow leaves. We get a few oranges and even fewer reds. Almost no reds. The Germans call it the "golden autumn". So today we went for a walk in the woods on the edge of our town, Bad Dürkheim, to enjoy the colors. The forest here is actually the largest forest in Germany, the Palatinate.

Below are some pictures from our walk.



We collected chestnuts. It's really popular in Germany to pick chestnuts in the fall when they're falling off the trees, then you make chestnut soup or just roast them and eat them as a snack.





A few closeups of the spiky outer shell of the chestnuts, and the last picture is our haul from today! I actually don't like chestnuts but Martin loves to roast them and have them as a snack so he's in heaven.

Rhinebeck Hiking: Poet's Walk, Ferncliff Forest, and Burger Hill

My friend Alyson and I decided to hike the 3 main trails in Rhinebeck this morning. We had a gorgeous fall day to do it, but the fall foliage was not at its peak yet. We began our morning at the Poet's Walk, which is a less-than-2-mile meander through fields and forest on the bank of the Hudson River. Below are a few pictures from that.



Next up is Ferncliff Forest, where we climbed the Ferncliff fire tower. 108 steps! A little scary, especially for Alyson because she's afraid of heights, but we made it.



Finally, we hit up Burger Hill, which is just a 10-minute climb to the top of the hill and you get amazing views of the Catskills from the top (though you get great views from the fire tower too!). A great way to end our 3-hike extravaganza.



Heading back down the hill:



Looking up the hill from the bottom:

Dolomites Hiking: The Peitlerkofel

Our final hike in the Dolomites was to the top of the Peitlerkofel. The Peitlerkofel is 2,875m high and supposedly has amazing panoramic views from the top. I say supposedly because, when we climbed it, the top was in the clouds so we didn't get to see much of the view. The important thing is that we made it to the top!

Here we are, just starting out the hike, looking towards the Peitlerkofel.



We were already above the fog in the valleys.



A few more views of the Peitlerkofel and the surrounding countryside as we wandered across a few meadows before we really started to climb.



This is taken from a little more than halfway up. Clouds kept rolling by, which was really neat.



Some pictures from the saddle between the big and little Peitlerkofel summits. Here is where you have to decide which peak to climb - the taller one, behind me in the picture below, is only about 50m taller.



View from the saddle. We started from down there!



If you choose to climb the taller Peitlerkofel, then get your harness on and strap yourself onto the chains and pull yourself on up, like the group below is doing. Side note, their guide smoked the whole way up.



We actually summitted the smaller Peitlerkofel and not the really high one. It was cold, cloudy, and windy while we were up there. I already couldn't feel my hands. Here are some pictures from the smaller peak. Yes we were the only people there. This is supposedly one of the most popular hikes in the Dolomites, but we were maybe the third group to reach the top.



The taller peak, as seen from the smaller peak.



Wait, I'm not at the top yet. Here I come.



And now I'm heading back down. I spent a total of 1-2 minutes at the top - just long enough to take a few pictures and eat a cookie. It was cold.



Some views from the way down, when we had more time for pictures. On the way up we were worried about storms in the forecast but on the way down we didn't care anymore.



Our lunch break spot.



So, this upper part of the trail consists of really nice, gentle switchbacks. This is where all of our pictures were taken. The views are gorgeous anywhere on this upper part of the trail. The bottom half of the trail is more of a bleak, steep rock scramble up a ravine. It's not really that bad, but it's definitely not the nicer half of the trail. We should have taken a picture of it but didn't.



We stopped at a hut on our way down - it was basically at the bottom, about a 20 minute walk from where we had parked. They had shaggy cows there - and goats, geese, etc. Here we had hot chocolate (me) and coffee with schnapps (Martin). As the day went on, the Peitlerkofel had more and more clouds around it so we were glad we summitted when we did.



Some pictures from the drive back to our hotel. Martin really hated all of the steep, windy, narrow roads we had to drive on to get to the trailheads (not that I enjoyed them). However, from our experience, this is how all mountain roads in Italy are. If you want to hike, you have to be brave and drive on these one-car-wide roads, generally with steep dropoffs to one side and zero visibility around sharp turns.