I’m slowly blogging about my 60th Birthday Trip back to Germany last June. The morning and early afternoon of Day 8, June 18, I spent at the Zweibrücken Rose Garden. On the way back from Zweibrücken, I’d decided to revisit Castles #23, 24, and 25 – which my family had visited on July 8, 1997 – during our first year living in Germany. You can read about the original visit in my Project 52 post for the year I was 33.
Why did I want to revisit those particular castles? I think it was partly because the day we’d gone in 1997 had been stunningly beautiful, and I’d taken some pictures that are still on my walls. A lot like the day I visited this year! – blue skies with bright white clouds doing interesting things. Those first castles we visited, I was so excited, I framed my favorites. As the years went by, there were too many good ones, and that fell by the wayside – but I still have some pictures from Dahn on my walls.
Another reason is that the three castles at Dahn are in the center of a part of the Pfälzerwald with lots of castles, rock formations, and hiking. And over the years, my family had visited several other castles in that region, which always reminded me of Dahn, and usually took us through the town of Dahn. It’s kind of a touristy place – for European tourists – and stayed in my mind as a place worth visiting. And it was nicely in between Zweibrücken and my hotel – so it seemed like the perfect time to go.
Now I also had in mind that – this time – I would find Burg Neudahn. The castle complex we’d visited includes Burg Altdahn, but many times we’d passed a sign for Burg Neudahn – but never managed to find the actual castle. I was thinking that now, traveling in Germany with GPS, I’d be able to drive right to it! I looked it up on the internet and it really does exist and you really can visit it. And I found directions, and decided to go to Neudahn first and add a new castle to my Castle Count.
And, reader, I utterly failed.
I did pass the sign for Burg Neudahn, well before I got into the town of Dahn, but my GPS was telling me to drive on. My undoing was that I trusted the GPS. It led me quite a bit further, took me into town, and had me turn down a small street behind some shops and wanted me to drive down a private road – with absolutely no sign of a castle anywhere near.
By this time I was super hot. I’d gotten a bit sunburned at the Rose Garden, and my sweet little car wasn’t air conditioned. And I had spotted an ice cream shop up in the town. So I parked my car there behind the shops and walked up and got a couple scoops of wonderful German ice cream (It’s almost always made on the premises), and that improved my spirits immensely. Here’s a picture of a rock formation I could see from where I parked my car:
I asked the lady at the shop where Neudahn was, and she was directing me to what I knew was the Altdahn Castle Complex, so I decided to just go ahead and go to that, since I knew it was easy to find. And Burg Neudahn is, once again, the castle maybe I’ll find on my next trip.
There are three castles at Dahn, so close to each other, they’re basically touching. I’m not completely sure why they call them three castles, but they are Burg Altdahn, Burg Grafendahn, and Burg Tanstein.
It took a short uphill hike to get to the castles, and I had the thrill of the first glimpse of the castle looming above me.
The hike made me hot again, so when I saw the shop had the popsicles that my kids always begged for at castles – I had to indulge!
And from there, it was roaming around the castles!
You can tell one of the things I love about castles are the intriguing shapes left by the ruins.
So yes, I was in my happy place – roaming all over an old German castle ruin, not having to worry about anyone getting impatient with me for spending my time taking pictures.
The rest will be mainly pictures. Again, believe it or not, I have considerably weeded this down from the number I actually took. When I was there in 1997, I was using a film camera, so I exercised a lot more restraint (but even then, my family got impatient).
Oh, since almost all the castles from our region of Germany were built on a hill, they always have wonderful views.
And I love the wildflowers growing out of rocks.
Some of the staircases were treacherous.
But just roaming all over the castle was so much fun. And remembering doing it with my kids added to the fun.
I laughed when I saw they’d made some of the stairs much less treacherous:
Ha! These! These are the very stairs where my two-year-old decided they’d had enough and threw a fit and sat down and refused to budge – and the stairs were so awful, I was afraid to try to pick them up. I have to say I completely endorse the improvement!
And here’s the picture from 1997 for comparison:
More roaming:
Finally heading back to the car park past the little shop:
Now, when I’d first arrived at the car park, a man I saw there urged me to take a second path for a lovely view of the castles. I wasn’t willing to stay away from the castles at that point, but that was what I did after roaming all over them. A short and blessedly flat walk led to this outlook:
It was shaded and restful and I snapped plenty of pics.
And as all my other days in the Pfälzerwald, I finished my day at Waldhotel Heller enjoying my balcony until the sun went down around 10 pm. Another truly wonderful day in Germany!
