Eltz Castle Tour

So yesterday I had a fantastic daytrip (actually I think it qualifies as much more than a day) down to the Eltz Castle. It was a tour organized by the INCAS office here, which is sort of like a travel and tour group at RWTH Aachen. The day started early and I had to be at the train station by 7:30. Since every weekend maintenance is done on the tracks from Aachen to Cologne, we had to go out of our way and ended up taking three trains and traveling about 3 hours, where we came to a small town in the mountains about 150km south of Aachen. It was a pretty rainy day so I was pretty concerned with the clothing I had brought, which consisted of little more than a thin jacket and vest. However, as we started wandering through the town and up the trail toward Burg Eltz, I warmed up and began to really enjoy some of the views. Despite the rain, our hike up through the grape fields of Southern Germany was beautiful, and revealed a sweeping landscape of agriculture, old towns, and waterways.

The hike ended up being substantially longer than I had suspected, and we walked for about two hours toward our destination. At first it was a hike up through grapevines and vinyards, which later leveled out into a plain of corn and wheat fields, finally transforming into a gorgeous green German forest. After a precarious hike down a creek-carved gulf and into a small valley, we rounded a corner which revealed the first view of Burg Eltz.

The castle itself was first built over 800 years ago. Over the proceding few centuries, the various families inhabiting it each added their own wing, leading to the impressive structure today. What I immediately noticed (and have always loved about the pictures of castles I have seen) is that there seems to be no plan whatsoever. The building is simply constructed conforming to the land, which results in a myriad of distinct walls and turrets, all of which come together to form an incredible vista.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a castle, but this particular one is still home to the heirs of those who lived here hundreds of years ago. The current family, whose name was impossibly long and entirely too German for me to remember, lives in the largest 'white' part of the castle, which is apparently completely modern and, as one would assume, exceedingly lavish.

The rest of the group had fallen behind as my new friend Greg and I reached the gates of the castle, so we took the opportunity to explore a bit and grab some food at a small cafe near the entrance. I have been loving the food here so much, and even in this remote area in the mountains I was able to find a delicious (and impressively cheap) meal of sausage and French fries, which I ordered as 'Bratwürsten mit Brötchen und Pommes'. It was pretty fun to look at some of the other foods that people were getting, which included something I have seen a lot: a sausage on top of fries and covered in curry sauce, as well as a sausage placed on top of a bowl of potato soup. There is a big difference between the sausage and wiener here though, as the sausage is usually with bread, etc. while the wiener is eaten with potatoes or beans. (I think I still have a lot to learn about sausage, coffee, and beer.)

I took a few shots while we were waiting of the outside of the castle, but mostly Greg and I tried to get warm since we were still soaked from our hike and the rain wasn't really letting up.

I was actually pretty excited to be there while it was raining because I got to see all of the elaborate rain gutters spilling water. In the above picture the dragon toward the mid-left was pouring rain. I also saw gargoyles and a few horses performing the same function.

We started a tour a bit after arriving, though unfortunately since the castle is privately owned almost no photography was allowed inside. I did, however, get a few shots of some suits of armor and really elaborate clocks and compasses in the the castle's treasury.

The tour of the castle itself was pretty brief, though it gave some interesting history. However, the best thing was the tour guide herself, who spoke pretty good English but said everything as though she had memorized a script, had a weird inflection on all of her sentences, and sounded as though she was judging and reprimanding me no matter what she said.

After lingering as long as possible in the treasury to keep warm, we headed out again on the two hour hike back to the Mosel river, where we were supposed to meet a boat to take us back to Koblenz. The hike back was pretty awesome, and I saw some of the biggest slugs of my life. I have never really seen slugs before, so these hand-sized monsters were slightly terrifying and completely intriguing. Ergo, I fell behind as I spent about ten minutes watching them move, well, sluggishly around.

At the end of the hike, during which we'd gone through another beautiful forest and a few small farming communities, we arrived at the Mosel river. The boat was not yet there; however, at the junction of the creek we had been hiking along and the river were a swan and her four signets. I haven't really seen many swans in the States, so being able to watch a whole family up close was pretty cool.

When our boat arrived I was instantly excited - it was a huge riverboat and I got a seat right by the window in the main dining room. We had some fantastic German beer and some of Southern Germany's most famous wine, and spent 3 hours just watching the beautiful vinyards and town passing by. At each town or vinyard there was also a sign on the hill, so no matter where we were on the river there was an indication of our exact location. The castle below is supposed to be really unique because it has two keeps, which is apparently almost unheard of.

In Koblenz the boat pulled up for us to disembark, and as we got off we heard an announcer over a loudspeaker in the town. It turned out there was a marathon, which was really fun to watch and also lent a chance to walk around a bit. There's a certain point in Koblenz where the river curves sharply around the town, and at this outcropping there was a massive statue of horse and rider, towering 120 meters above an amphitheater below. Near this was the finish line of the race where exhausted runners were coming across and were immediately handed a beer. Even funnier were the various booth-keepers, who would periodically come in with buckets, fill them with beer, and go out again to poor it to anyone watching or participating in the race.

It turned out that the train station was farther away than we had originally thought and we had to sprint to make it on time. We ran through the station and up the last steps where the train was already waiting! Finally after three trains and 4 hours we came back to Aachen exhausted, where I quickly passed out, reflecting on a great day.