Month: October 2024

I’m writing about my 60th birthday trip back to Germany after 18 years away. I’m up to Day 7, which was Monday, June 17.

It began with a yummy and leisurely breakfast at Waldhotel Heller. I was the only guest that first morning, and I remember I had plenty of wonderful Brötchen, just like old times, plus some yogurt. Then I still had time to plan out my route.

The night before, I’d looked up my favorite restaurants, especially castle restaurants, but they all seemed to be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. (I later learned – when it was too late – that one of my favorites, Altenbaumburg, was closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Oh well! Next time!) So I decided to start Monday with enjoying the Pfälzerwald by doing some hiking through the forest. On the Pfälzerwald website I found what was supposed to be one of the prettiest trails, to the Karlstalschlucht. And it passed two castles! So I could add to my castle count as well as going on a beautiful hike through the woods.

The drive was half the fun! I was on the edge of the village, so I drove through the whole village of Iggelbach, then on a very narrow forest road, then to good old B48 (which heads north all the way to two of the places we’d lived in Germany), then to the village of Trippstadt.

And the path began at my Castle #171, the Trippstadter Schloß. (To count as a castle, it must have a name, be over 100 years old, be a castle or a palace or a fortification, and I have to touch it. I’d never touched this one before, so it was number 171.)

I had a little trouble finding the trailhead, but that was a nice excuse for roaming the grounds.

You can see it was a cloudy day, but it was nice and cool, which I appreciated after we’d had some heat in Virginia.

At last I found markers for the Spazierwanderweg Karlstalschlucht, which basically means Fun-hiking-trail Karl’s-Valley-Gorge, and is 5.1 km long in a loop trail. A longer loop was marked in green for the Rundwanderweg Karlstalschlucht.

It took me a little wandering around at the back of the property of the Trippstadter Schloß.

Here was confirmation that, yes, I was to go through the gate.

The start of the trail went along a wide meadow, downhill toward a forested area.

I passed a few sculptures by the trail.

And it was just lovely to absorb that I was back in beautiful Germany, walking through the countryside.

I came to a small village, or maybe just an Ort.

These guys were interested in me walking by.

And then I started going a little deeper into the woods.

Then, much to my delight, I found Castle #172, Burg Wilenstein!

I couldn’t go inside, but I could roam all over the grounds.

According to the brochure, you can use the castle for classes and seminars, and it’s even got lodging inside. But it was all closed up that day and I just enjoyed exploring the outside.

One of my favorite things about castles is the shapes juxtaposed against their backdrops. I love doors leading to nowhere like this.

Looking off the edge in the back, you can see there’s thick forest.

And more wonderful shapes.

So that was the beginning of my hike. From there, it was on to the Karlstalschlucht – which I’ll cover in the next post.

I’m still blogging about my epic 60th birthday trip to Germany last June. Day 6, Sunday, June 16, was the halfway point, and the day I’d chosen to drive across Germany from Leipzig to the Kaiserslautern area – to at last revisit the places I’d lived with my family eighteen years before.

I decided to take the southern route, slightly longer, but that way I wouldn’t have to drive through Frankfurt and wouldn’t be driving the same route I’d taken to get to Leipzig – and see more of Germany.

Alas! I couldn’t take pictures while I was driving, but it was an amazing and wonderful drive. I felt very much the savvy traveler, because I’d planned to do that on a Sunday when I knew there wouldn’t be trucks on the road. I believe it’s a law in Germany – and sure enough, in the six hour drive, I only passed about a dozen trucks, instead of the constant stream of them the other days. Also, most of the Autobahns along the way had three lanes, unlike the two-lane ones between Kaiserslautern and Frankfurt, so that was a little less stressful driving. On the two-lane Autobahns, when you pass, you have to look way back for approaching BMWs, but if there are three lanes, I do most of my passing in the middle lane and stay out of their way anyway.

Another plus was that I saw how Dave had set up his GPS and tried it on my rental car and sure enough! I could put the GPS map on the car screen and that was much much better than hearing the directions but having to check the little phone to look at the map. (It wasn’t until the 9th day of my trip, however, that I discovered the display also included the current speed limit in the bottom right corner, which was very helpful. Anyway, I managed not to get a ticket.) [Yes, large sections of the Autobahn do not have speed limits, but many sections do – if it’s within city limits, for example. And often there are speed cameras soon after the speed limit goes down. The only tickets I ever got in Germany happened that way on the Autobahn.]

I was a little concerned about getting to my “Waldhotel” by a reasonable time. I’d booked it through Travelocity, which said the hotel management would send instructions for checking in, but never got any such. Well, it turned out to be an old hotel with the owners living on the premises, so I needn’t have worried.

I’d picked a place in the Pfälzerwald south of where we used to live, essentially a national forest with lots and lots of unspoiled forest and hiking and lots of castles.

Somewhere around Heilbronn, as I was coming down the mountains toward the Rhein Valley, I got a big deja vu moment, sure that we’d driven that exact road coming home from family vacations many years before. Of course, I’d gotten the same feeling at the rest stops where I’d stopped.

But then driving into the forest – it felt like coming home! The little villages felt so familiar, and then the Pfälzerwald forest.

Waldhotel Heller was on the far end of the Village of Iggelsbach – or at least I had to drive through the whole village to get to it.

When I first moved to Germany, driving in villages stressed me out because with the narrow roads, you need to be ready to pull over to one side if someone’s coming the other way. Now it filled me with nostalgia and happiness that I know how to drive in German villages. At last, I found my hotel.

The decor could have used some updating, but it was run by a friendly couple with their dog, the breakfasts were wonderful, the price was excellent, and I absolutely loved the balcony.

After putting my stuff in the room, I tried to find a restaurant and gas – and failed utterly. (Although the hotel had signs for a restaurant, the owners had retired their restaurant and limited it to serving breakfast.) I passed what looked like a restaurant, but didn’t really see a place to park (remember those narrow roads?) and no cars parked in front of it, so I wasn’t sure it was open. And then I found a gas station that was self-service and couldn’t get it to work. So I decided to drive into Kaiserslautern the next day where I could get gas for sure. And I’d had enough driving, so I went back to my hotel room and had a Kind bar for dinner. I decided for the rest of the week, I’d set off in the morning and have lunch and dinner out and about and come back to my hotel room for some balcony time. Since the sun didn’t go down until about 10 pm, that plan ended up working perfectly.

And so I started off that night with some wonderful balcony time, reading and journaling. I took a short video, and it still amazes me how completely quiet it was at 8 pm on a Sunday night. Some birds were chirping, and then I heard some church bells ringing across the valley. It was so beautiful and so peaceful, and I was ready for the Remembering and Savoring part of my trip.