• CH & IT Roadtrip
    This glimpse from the car of what I thought was a castle resulted in a detour to Ringgenberg.
    Under an arched gateway, I spy a charming village house — Ringgenberg.The church was built in 1670 in the ruins of the 13th century castle — Ringgenberg.View of the church from the cemetery — Ringgenberg.The cemetery at the church — Ringgenberg.Thunersee from the church cemetery — Ringgenberg.The ubiquitous flower boxes add color to a wall near the church stairs — RinggenbergView of the village from the church stairs — Ringgenberg.These stairs lead to the ruins of the 13th century castle tower — Ringgenberg.The courtyard and castle walls with the tower at the far end — Ringgenberg.What's left of the tower that once housed the banqueting hall can be viewed from the metal walkway.Gladiolus in the church garden — Ringgenberg.I love how the Swiss towns decorate their roundabouts — Lake Brienzersee Drive.

    Beatenberg: Day 3 … Ringgenberg

    20 juli, Schweiz ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    Another day with rain in the forecast … though we woke up to sunshine and were able to enjoy breakfast-with-a-view on the balcony.

    Having learned our lesson from yesterday’s soaking, we canceled our plans to go hiking in the Bernese Alps. Instead, we went for a drive around Brienzersee [Lake Brienz] … the ‘twin’ to Thunersee, if you will … with Interlaken, as the name implies, between the two.

    The plan was to drive to Brienz, at the far end of the lake from where we were, perhaps take the cable car up for bird’s eye views of the area, have lunch somewhere, and return to Beatenberg via the south side of the lake. But first, a glimpse of a fortress-like structure — part of it in ruins — had us detouring to the small village of Ringgenberg.

    Turns out that what I had spied was a church — built in 1670. But I wasn’t far off. The church was built within the ruins of Ringgenberg Castle … constructed in the 13th century by Kuno von Brienz, who was appointed overlord of Lake Brienz by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The castle was burned and plundered in 1381 … never to be rebuilt.

    The only parking available was for worshippers attending church service … which, as it turns out, was underway … as I found out when I climbed the stairs and cracked open the door. I backed out quietly. So, Mui remained with the car while I quickly checked out the ruins of the castle tower — which, back in the day, housed the banqueting hall — and took a peek at the lake views from the cemetery.

    Then, we were back on the road rimming Brienzersee to continue our drive.    Läs mer

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