Bavaria and Middle Rhine

Another day, another castle. I was torn on what the plans were for this day. Originally, I was going to wake us up early, take the train up to Koblenz, then switch there to go down the Mosel and visit Burg Eltz (this castle is an Instagram Star), and the town of Cochem. Maybe take a boat trip (yes, another one) down to Beilstein, a super cute village of less than 100 full time residents.

But when it came to it, I was so tired. We opted for Marksburg in the Rhine town of Braubach instead. Now I could have been less than honest and said "We chose Marksburg because it's the only castle along the Rhine never to have been destroyed. It's completely 100% Medieval." That was a draw, but Burg Eltz is also really old, and much cuter.

But Marksburg it was, and we set off on this rainy morning for our last day along the Rhine. Trains were running a bit behind. This meant that we missed our connection in Koblenz, but didn't have enough time to run out to the Deutsche Ecke-- another place where two rivers join together (in this corner, the Rhine and Mosel).

When we finally got on the next train, we crossed to the east bank of the Rhine and made our way to Braubach. It was early Sunday morning and the town was dead. We didn't see one person on our way from the train station up through the town to the castle. It was a steep climb, and while I understand there were strategic reasons for putting castles at the highest point (yes, that whole "high ground" thing that everyone in military tactics knows about except apparently the French at Agincourt and Annakin Skywalker), but it's really inconvenient when you're tired of walking.

A brief word about Marksburg. Oh no, she said brief, you're thinking, I'll still be reading this in an hour... As I mentioned, it's the only surviving castle from the Middle Ages. It's gone through a succession of owners, as all of them have. This one came up in the world though: first a Freiherr, than a Graf, than a Margraf. It managed to survive intact through all the back and forth among the German nobility, and even Napoleon. In the early 1900s, it was bought by the German Castle Association, and they still run the place today.

We were hours too early for the English tour, once a day at 1:00. Since we had read up about the place online, we decided to tag along on the first tour of the day. There were only two other people, a couple who spoke Russian. She only spoke Russian, he spoke German. The guide asked if he could do it in English, as we outnumbered them, but we said don't worry about it. There was a guide pamphlet in English, and we were good with that.

This was a great castle. Even with my years of reading and teaching Medieval history, I've never actually been in a castle which has been kept in its more or less pristine Medieval condition. There were a lot of rough areas where the stone wasn't level, for example. Of course, all I could think of was stubbed toes and broken legs, running over that mess in the heat of battle, or the heat of being yelled out by Graf or Grafin Whoever when they wanted some hot water or something.

There was a small museum of arms, armor, and torture devices. The chapel and the garden, a replica of the kitchen/ medicinal garden the lady of the castle would have kept were my favorite parts. If you could walk freely through the place (you can't, have to stay with the tour), I could have spent a lot more time in both places. I have to say, I did manage to catch a good bit of the German tour, but of course I understood the context, and had read the pamphlet, so I wouldn't say my A2 Level German proved itself here.

That said: Marksburg pictures. Highly recommend this castle if you're along the Middle Rhine, even if you can't make it for the English tour.Read more