A couple of Burgs!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

This morning we ate breakfast at the winery where we were staying, cheese, bread, eggs and coffee. Following.breakfast we went down to the wine celler to taste the wine they were bottling and see the bottling process. The wine was excellent and it was fun to chat with the guys bottling the wine and see the process in action. After packing up the car we walked into town to do a little wine tasting and walk up to the castle. The walk was intense, it was so steep and it didn't help that it began to rain on us! The view from the top was totally worth it though, great pictures will be coming soon!

On our way up to the castle, or burg in German, we stopped in at a wine celler where we tasted a few white wines. They were all pretty amazing. After our hike we stopped for lunch, cordon bleau with pommes and a glass of riesling. Then we went back to the wine celler where I bought a nice riesling and we tasted some rosé wines. I'm not a huge fan of the rosé. We headed back to the cat stopping to buy a bottle of wine from the vineyard where we stayed.

Once in the car it was time to navigate our way to Burg Eltz. This was tricky as there were many misleading signs and no proper street name signs. We won though, finding the parking lot with no u-turns needed! From the lot it was a 10 minute walk down to the castle. This is the castle that I posted about back before we left for the trip and while it looks like the picture half of it is covered in scaffolding as they do some repairs to the roof. It's still an impressive sight though. The inside was also quite impressive. The Eltz family has owned the castle for about 600 years and they still stay in it and have their pictures on the walls. The castle was never destroyed in battle so it truly is old and not a recostruction of something old. I really enjoyed the tour of the castle and just wish we could have taken pictures inside. I'll have to see if I can link to any on their website.

After viewing the castle we went down into the treasury to look at the suits of armor and jewels. Very fun. Then we walked down to the little stream running below the castle. So picturesque!

We opted to pay the 1.50 euro for a van to take us up to the parking lot. Then began our most difficult drive, the burg to Köln! Using our our atlas and our bad google directions we made our way onto the highway and got into the city where we sat for awhile in some nasty rush hour traffic. We managed to make only one wrong turn beforw finding our hotel and parking on the street. We checked in and took our bags upstaira and then walked over to the train station to figure out where exactly we needed to drop the car off. It wasn't too confusing so we went and put gas in the car (I will now stop complaining about US gas prices) and then managed to get the car parked and the keys returned.

We set out from the train station to find some dinner. Now, when you exit the train station a very impressive sight awaits you, the Dom! This Catholic Cathedral is a gothic monstrosity! The thing is huge and thankfully they took all of the art and windows out in preparation for wwii so everything is original and wasn't destroyed in the war.  We only saw it from the outside tpday bit plan to go in tomorrow.

We walked along and found a place to eat. We ordered sausage and potatoes. We looked around and noticed that the beer came in tiny delicate glasses, .2 liters of beer. In Munich the beer came in full liter jugs and asking for less than a half liter was laughed at! I guess we aren't in Bavaria anymore!

On the way back to the hotel we had to stop for ice cream, lime and strawberry! It's interesting because in the States I don't care for fruity ice cream but here it is just so much better. They use actual fruit and not just fruit flavoring. Delicious!

Suzie :-)