When we planned a trip that would take us to Europe for a week, people asked, "What do you want to see?" At first, I just said, "Whatever is there." Then I started thinking, and we started buying things like train tickets, and I amended my answer; "I want to see a castle."
I've grown up in the American West; we get all excited if something is 100 or 150 years old. Our entire nation is just over 200. When my niece spent a year abroad in France, she lived in an ordinary neighborhood in an ordinary town, and her home was over 400 years old, with stone walls. The thought made me swoon.
At our first stop, Madeira, there was no castle. The island was gorgeous, and I didn't miss the opportunity to see a castle.
Our second stop was Gibralter. I was excited about the rock, the monkeys, the view across the channel to Africa. But there, sitting on the hill, was a castle.
See it? Don't worry, we got closer.
It became apparent that castles were not scarce the morning we arrived in Barcelona. This was the view from the deck of our ship:
Well, then!
This is Montjuic Castle, first built in 1640. We didn't go inside, but we did get a closer view.
We hit the castle jackpot in Germany.
After looking, exhaustively, at flights to take us home, we'd discovered that the least expensive flight left on a Thursday from Frankfurt, so we arranged to arrive in Frankfurt on Tuesday night. That left all of Wednesday for an adventure. We were without a car (we'd arrived by train), so we looked into tour companies, and settled on a tour that would pick us up from, and deliver us back to, our hotel. We were scheduled to go down the Rhine in a tour boat, on a stretch of river that was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has the highest concentration of castles in Europe. We all charged our camera batteries in anticipation.
Unfortunately, the Rhine was flooding. It was the highest water level in over 300 years. Virtually all river traffic was halted.
This is a staircase that goes down to the waterfront sidewalk. The water levels were, if I recall, 15 to 20 feet above normal here.
Many of the docks were themselves underwater. Some peeked out, but you wouldn't want to dock there.
The tour company had a contingency plan. We would still get many of the usual elements of the tour - lunch at a cafe, a visit to a local monument, a ride down the mountainside in a chair lift reminiscent of a ski lift - but instead of sailing past numerous castles, we'd get to tour the grounds and interior of one.
It was an absolutely picture perfect example of a castle - suits of armor, a ballroom, towers... just gorgeous.
There's me and my husband.
Here's the view from across the river.
Isn't that storybook perfect?
What was more astonishing to me, though, were the number of other castles in the area, castles not included as part of the tour. They were just sitting there, a part of the normal scenery.
I mean, they're just everyday buildings. Here's another view from across the river, showing the next castle just a bend in the river away.
Do you see that? Here's a closer look.
They're within sight of each other, some of these castles. Holy cow! I mean, even if it was centuries ago, I could easily walk or ride between them!
So, we have a new plan on the back burner. Some day, we'll go back to Germany. We'll drive the Romantic Road, we'll float down the Rhine, and we'll photograph more castles.
It's a great plan.
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