{"id":13552,"date":"2024-09-17T21:35:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T01:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13552"},"modified":"2024-09-17T21:37:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T01:37:32","slug":"my-epic-germany-trip-day-5-burg-mildenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13552","title":{"rendered":"My Epic Germany Trip – Day 5 – Burg Mildenstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This past June, I took a trip back to Germany in honor of my 60th birthday, and I’m slowly blogging about the wonderful trip.<\/p>\n

Day 5 was Saturday, June 15, and Kate’s husband Dave drove Kate and me to another castle, Burg Mildenstein<\/a>, my personal Castle #170. This post will be mainly pictures. Once again, I was completely delighted to get to roam around a castle.<\/p>\n

These castles in the Schl\u00c3\u00b6sserland<\/em> had been renovated wonderfully to appeal to visitors, with plenty of museum-like exhibits, and lots of kid-friendly features.<\/p>\n

Here’s a outline of the history of the castle. Funny how there’s an English heading, but the main text is in German. Makes me wonder if I just didn’t see the part that had it translated into English. Still, you can see that this castle’s history goes back to 1046.<\/p>\n

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One of those kid-friendly features:<\/p>\n

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Detail on the ceiling was beautiful.<\/p>\n

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The rooms were definitely fun to roam through.<\/p>\n

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I always get a kick out of old doorways that make me feel tall.<\/p>\n

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And the view from a castle is always special.<\/p>\n

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One of the special things going on that day was an exhibit of work by an East German photographer, who took portraits of people in East German villages during the Communist regime. They had his pictures displayed in a few different places in the castle, and they were breathtaking.<\/p>\n

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Castle doorways can be so inviting.<\/p>\n

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We climbed the castle tower.<\/p>\n

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Of course the view from the top was wonderful.<\/p>\n

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But sometime we had to come down.<\/p>\n

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The inside was essentially a well-curated medieval museum. (We followed a numbered self-guided tour for all of this.)<\/p>\n

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Have I mentioned that weather in Germany in June is wonderful? We had a breezy, sunshiny, beautiful day.<\/p>\n

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So perhaps that gives an idea of why I love going to castles so much!<\/p>\n

After that, we tried to find another castle that wasn’t too far away, but Google Maps let us down when there was a road closed. We couldn’t figure out where to park or where the castle actually was. But we had fun driving around the countryside, regardless.<\/p>\n

And we got back in the afternoon in time for Kate to walk Riley the Wonder Dog, the sweetest dog ever. (He has since passed away. He was getting old, but his heart was devoted always to Kate.)<\/p>\n

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That night, I had the privilege of going along with Kate and Dave to a dinner party with a delightful group of English-speaking expats, from various countries. They’ve got a wonderful international community there. (Plus the food was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a pavlova before, but it turns out they’re an exquisite dessert.)<\/p>\n

One funny thing was that after eating, the ladies were talking at one end of the table and the men at another. They got to talking about a horror story of someone whose rental car broke down in another European country on vacation and fighting about payment. Which led to another story… and eventually someone declared that as a woman, you should never travel alone in Europe.<\/p>\n

Well, when I heard that, I bit my tongue and smiled to myself. Whenever I’d gotten nervous about my German vacation and jaunting all around the country on my own, I reminded myself that Germany was home<\/em> for ten years. It’s not a scary place! It’s somewhere where I’m very used to adventuring. If I were ever in trouble, almost all Germans speak English, but even if not, I can get by with my rudimentary German. Germans are invariably helpful – and I just reminded myself – this place has been my home.<\/p>\n

[I also keep forgetting to pass on to Kate and Dave the tip we were given early on: Sign up for ADAC, the German Auto Club. It’s good all over Europe. One time, our car broke down a good hour from home, and it covered a tow truck to get us back. And they have discounts like the American Auto Club, and it’s one more way to feel peace of mind wherever you travel in Europe.]<\/p>\n

Though I have to admit, I did envy Kate and Dave their wonderful international friends. (There were some lovely accents among them.) Yes, we had friends from the military base, but those were mostly American, and I loved the international perspectives in this group.<\/p>\n

So – that rounded out the first part of my trip, in Leipzig with Kate. It was a truly wonderful way to start my German adventure and ease back into Europe. The next day, I was ready to set out on my solo adventure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past June, I took a trip back to Germany in honor of my 60th birthday, and I’m slowly blogging about the wonderful trip. Day 5 was Saturday, June 15, and Kate’s husband Dave drove Kate and me to another castle, Burg Mildenstein, my personal Castle #170. This post will be mainly pictures. Once again, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-13552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-germany-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13586,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13552\/revisions\/13586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}