{"id":13600,"date":"2024-10-28T23:26:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T03:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13600"},"modified":"2024-10-28T23:26:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T03:26:13","slug":"my-epic-germany-trip-day-7-castles-171-and-172","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13600","title":{"rendered":"My Epic Germany Trip – Day 7 – Castles 171 and 172"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m writing about my 60th birthday trip back to Germany after 18 years away<\/a>. I’m up to Day 7, which was Monday, June 17.<\/p>\n

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 Br\u00c3\u00b6tchen, just like old times, plus some yogurt. Then I still had time to plan out my route.<\/p>\n

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 Pf\u00c3\u00a4lzerwald by doing some hiking through the forest. On the Pf\u00c3\u00a4lzerwald website I found what was supposed to be one of the prettiest trails, to the Karlstalschlucht<\/a>. And it passed two castles! So I could add to my castle count as well as going on a beautiful hike through the woods.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And the path began at my Castle #171, the Trippstadter Schlo\u00c3\u0178. (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.)<\/p>\n

I had a little trouble finding the trailhead, but that was a nice excuse for roaming the grounds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It took me a little wandering around at the back of the property of the Trippstadter Schlo\u00c3\u0178.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here was confirmation that, yes, I was to go through the gate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The start of the trail went along a wide meadow, downhill toward a forested area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I passed a few sculptures by the trail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And it was just lovely to absorb that I was back in beautiful Germany, walking through the countryside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I came to a small village, or maybe just an Ort.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These guys were interested in me walking by.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And then I started going a little deeper into the woods.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then, much to my delight, I found Castle #172, Burg Wilenstein!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I couldn’t go inside, but I could roam all over the grounds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my favorite things about castles is the shapes juxtaposed against their backdrops. I love doors leading to nowhere like this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking off the edge in the back, you can see there’s thick forest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And more wonderful shapes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So that was the beginning of my hike. From there, it was on to the Karlstalschlucht – which I’ll cover in the next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Br\u00c3\u00b6tchen, just like old […]<\/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-13600","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\/13600","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=13600"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13648,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13600\/revisions\/13648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}