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A later start today so we “slept in” until 8. We were just arriving in Koblenz as we got up. Although we would actually see very little of Koblenz today. Today we were headed to the Marksburg Castle by coach. Our first excursion beyond walking. But the buses were about a 10 minute walk along the river. It’s an interesting array of old people on parade to see us all headed in one direction like that. But a nice park/pathway along the river front (which seems to be true in most places we’ve been so far).
There was a sky tram that went across the river and up the cliffs on the other side to an old castle. And behind it an old hotel or something like that. A very quaint building. There was a market of some kind in the area but it wasn’t open yet. So just a series of white tents closed up. But it looked like something that would be fun to visit.
We got on our assigned bus and headed through town briefly, then across the river and along the other bank for 10 minutes or so. There were two ladies in front of us who didn’t know each other and so we got to listen to the one pretty much tell the other her life story during the trip. My favorite part was when she looked over and saw the river and said “oh, is that the Rhine?” Well gee, we’ve been sailing up it for days now. We clearly crossed it, then took a right and haven’t done anything but follow it since. So yeah, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that’s probably the Rhine. It was *very* hard not to voice this out loud but I did not.
My other favorite comments was when she said it was too bad they let the trees grow up high and block the view. Yeah, damn Germans, always trying to ruin things for us tourists. Seeing as the goal was probably to block the view of the highway from the houses down below, I figured it was probably reasonable. But again, I did not speak this out loud (well, quietly to Marion, but not to them.)
The castle sits on a hilltop or crag above the town of Braubach, which was a very quaint little village that would have been fun to wander, but not on the agenda. We drove up to the base of the crag and then climbed the hill up to the castle itself. Not a bad climb for us 50 year olds. A bit of an adventure for some of the older folks. But I think everyone made it. The program director had done his best to dissuade the more feeble among us from attempting it and that seemed to have worked.
The castle is quite impressive. It’s the only castle along the Rhine (and there are MANY) that has not been destroyed in some way or abandoned since it was built. So it was in good shape. Our first stop on the tour was the display of family crests of the people who have owned it. Pretty much a series of ‘owned by this family, lost a war, ceded it to this family’ etc. for 1200 years. It was built in stages, as most old things around here were – a central keep, then additional walls and outer buildings.
Our tour was given by Dieter (who did not dance the German dances – a reference to an SNL skit by Mike Myers if you’re not familiar – Google it). He was much better than yesterday’s guide. I enjoyed his accent. He was a bit severe, in the way Germans speaking English often are, but entertaining. Until at one point during the tour he said “where is everyone from? Mostly Americans?” Then sort of grunted under his breath and muttered ‘mostly Americans…’. Which did not endear him to us and lowered our opinion of him a few notches.
But the tour was really interesting. We saw the kitchens where the servants worked (Marion’s favorite room – it smelled good too) and the wine cellar. In the wine cellar Dieter explained that at that time, people drank wine (water wasn’t safe to drink). He said “they drank up to 5 liters a day…. <pause>… it was a happy time”. That drew a good laugh. They had a very nice herb garden around the inner wall as well, so it doesn’t seem like such a bad place to hang out.
We saw the lord’s bedchamber (small, but cozy, the only room with wood paneling), the knights room, the stables, etc. Dieter like to tell us how various sayings we still use came into being. For example, the women would generally sew or spin yarn when they weren’t doing whatever else they were doing. They’d sit in a group and gossip, hence the origin of the term to ‘spin a yarn’. There were many others. He liked to ask questions that we didn’t know the answers to. A little subtle German superiority game we thought.
There was another interesting room best described as ‘armor through the ages’, with examples from the Greeks up until the 1700’s or so when guns became a viable weapon and clanking around in armor to protect yourself from swords and spears wasn’t really the best defense. From that point on people started wearing uniforms.
There was a small piece of armor on the wall that looked like a breastplate with little arm holes. I thought “oh, how cute – baby armor”. I was feeling very smart until the guide told us it was the piece that goes on a horse’s head and the ‘arm holes’ were where the ears came out!
The castle itself was quite a marvel of engineering. Really built into the rock. In fact the paths were broken rock and quite uneven, yet knights in full regalia on horseback apparently rode up and down them without killing themselves. There were various things done to improve defenses, including making the staircases in the outer areas narrow (to only allow room for one person) and curving to the right (so that a right-handed swordsman wouldn’t be able to use his sword). The privy, which was basically a box on the outside of the castle wall with a hole in the bottom, was in a room that could be locked with a heavy iron door from the inside in case anyone tried to come in that way (ewww). The “keep” (the big tower in the middle) had no windows and was only reachable by a single wooden bridge about 2/3 of the way up. If they had to use it, they’d go in, then burn the bridge behind them. Hence the origin of burning your bridges (another Dieterism).
The last stop was the torture room. Or at least a room in the castle where they displayed various forms of punishment and torture from medieval times. The castle didn’t have a torture room when it operated. Suffice it to say, in those days, you really wanted to be good and not run afoul of the constabulary.
All in all a very interesting look into the medieval world. And you could certainly understand why no one had bothered to attack it. They weren’t going to get in. Attacking up a very steep hill to a castle with extremely thick walls, easily defended by a small group. My recommendation, surround it and starve them out. Although I’m sure they kept livestock and had some level of access to water (plus it rains here enough).
The boat came up river to meet us so it was a quick ride back down the hill. From there we spent the next 5 hours or so, meandering up the part of the Rhine where all the castles are. And they’re everywhere. Pretty much on every hill. Some in better shape than others and I guess all of them that weren’t falling down had been rebuilt at some point in the ‘near’ past (i.e. last 150 or so years), during the German Romantic period when there was a movement to remember and glorify the illustrious German past. They’re all sitting dramatically on the tops of hills overlooking the river. A good chunk of folks spent at least some time up on the sun deck watching them go by. But it was only a few hardy souls, like me, who were up there the whole time, dutifully taking a picture of each one. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to do that, but I did. And actually, one of the last ones was my favorite so I’m glad I stayed for it.
And as if right on cue, as we exited that stretch of the river (it was amazing how flat it got so fast), it started dripping a little rain and the hardy few of us still up there, packed it in and went inside. It was time for dinner anyway.
As dinner was ending we entered the Main River (exit stage left off the Rhine) and shortly thereafter entered a lock. We’ve apparently been through a couple already, but in the middle of the night and only a few hardy souls (or light sleepers) noticed. But this one caused a good number of people, including us, to go up to the front to watch it happen. This is a *big* lock. It held our boat, one of the fairly long boats carrying sand/gravel, and another boat in front of that. The lock filled slowly enough we weren’t sure it was happening until we started watching a line on the boat against a sign on the side. But ultimately we were raised up and off we went. There are many more locks to come (68 total on the trips) and I imagine they’ll lose interest quickly. But it’s still an interesting thing to watch.
The night ended with a trivia/quiz in the lounge. We were late to it so we didn’t get an answer sheet. But Gary, the program director, reread the questions we missed so we answered them all in our heads. It turns out we would have won (18 of 20 correct). But without proper documentation, we couldn’t claim a victory. But we will always know it was us.
6/27/14
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