All I can say is: I SPENT THE NIGHT IN A GERMAN CASTLE!!!! :)
 |
| Castle Liebenstei |
Castle Liebenstien was absolutely gorgeous! The castle had a wonderful medieval feel and an absolutely breakthaking view of the Rhine and the mountains. The bed had wonderful fluffy down blankets and pillows, the food was excellent, and we sat through the entire sunset on our window seat looking out at our fabulous view just soaking it all in. Now the story of how we actually reached the castle is an interesting one...
Now, for those of you who didn't know, one of the biggest unknowns of our trip was how we were actually going to get to the castle. The internet information was terrible. We woke up Tuesday morning in Brussels, showered, packed, ate a nice breakfast at our B&B and were all ready to go. We walked three blocks...once again dragging our luggage across the uneven cobblestone (heaven help our poor suitcases) and took the metro to Brussels Midi/Zuid. (South Brussels Station – their main one). We waited in line at the international kiosk. And bought two reserved seats on the train to Koln. We took that train from noon to 2:15 and then switched and road a train from Koln to Koblenz. We arrived in Koblenz hoping we would find some answers. The papers I had printed from the internet mentioned a ferry, but nothing at the Koblenz station suggested one existed. The information desk didn't speak English. So, we went to find a taxi. Our routine when we have all the luggage is to leave one of us to guard and the other goes out to hunt (whether it's Belgian waffles, reservations to Koblenz, a taxi driver who actually knows where we're going, etc...) I approached the taxi drivers:
Me: English?
Re: Little
Me: Castle Liebenstien?
Re: Where?!
Me: (Mentally – great, we're never going to find my castle!) Kamp-Bonhofen, Castle Liebenstien?
One of the five or six taxi drivers: Ah, yes....
Me: (Mental woohoo!!!)
They gave us an estimate – a little pricey, but at that point we were pretty lost and desparate. Of course I had picked to initially talk to the taxi driver who had the tiniest car, but we somehow crammed in all of our stuff and set off for the castle! We drove through beautiful German countryside – and saw lots of pretty little villages. We drove for a good twenty minutes or so, trying to have conversation with our cab driver. While trying to figure out how long he had lived in Koblenz, we discovered he had a thirty-six year old kinder and that he had lived in Koblenz for 25 years and Dresden before that. He was pretty old, so of course I then wanted to know if he was a child in Dresden when it was fire bombed...but I started confusing him and he wasn't watching the road as much, so I gave up. Soon after he told Daniel he needed to pull into the store to ask for directions. This is the best part.
So he pulls in and basically blocks a woman in to ask her if she knows of Castle Liebenstien. Ah yes, she smiles, holds up a finger and pulls a map of all the German castles out of her car – since everyone travels around with those... But she doesn't know how exactly to get there, so she turns to ask another gentleman who is putting his groceries in his car. He doesn't know, so the woman shouts across the parking lot. Two or three people answer back – so before we know it, our taxi driver is talking across the parking lot with five or six different people from the local village trying to discern where on earth the castle is...at this point Daniel and I are sitting in the cab laughing and laughing – what else can you do? By a stroke of luck one of the women leaving the grocery store says she lives up on the same mountain and that the taxi driver can follow her! Woohoo!
So our driver follows her and we make the poor guy drive us and all our luggage up these steep tiny winding mountain roads. We initially missed the turn, but ultimately reach the castle to discover an absolutely beautiful, breathtaking view of the Rhine River gently cutting a path through the green mountains with several little villages below all nestled into their section of the mountains. And even better, after we paid the driver and found ourselves standing atop this beautiful peak beside the castle, they had our names on the books and were excited to see us! They quickly brought us upstairs to room 5 and negotiated what time we were hoping to eat dinner.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon taking lots and lots of pictures, climbing to the top of one of the castle's towers, and staring out at our awesome view. We stayed in one of the two castles of Kamp-Bonhofen, the other castle was directly across from us and supposedly belonged to the original owners brother – so they were feuding castles. For dinner we got to sit at a window that gave a perfect view of the other castle and the Rhine and truly made us realize where we were.
We had a wonderful evening and had a delicious breakfast in the morning – it was really fun to wake up and realize where we actually were. The owners were very helpful and friendly and one of them drove us down to a local train station this morning. We have spent the rest of the day on the trains and should arrive in Munich in another two hours. Overall a fabulous experience – one of those fun realized fantasies :)
Since we've stayed in a different place the past two nights we're really excited to stay in just one spot for the next two nights – which probably doesn't sound like a very long time, but two nights is much more relaxing than just one. Onward we go! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment