We had a busy week with lots of 2017 projects ready to close. It takes me about 30 minutes to close a project and sometimes it is not ready to close so I have to send it back for some more work on it to make sure everything is documented and all bills have been paid. Grandma got the newsletter pulled together and emailed out. I had about 8 projects with financial problems that just showed up as the couples were ready to close their projects. It seemed like I take 1 step forward and slip back 2 steps. We have two couples to train at the end of the month so we have been customizing our training for each of them this week. The week was only 4 days, but it seemed like 10. We were ready to get away from the office and get our minds off the work for a couple of hours.
Saturday was a cold rainy day, but we decided we had to get out of the apartment and do something, so we searched our files of things to do and chose to go to Braunfels Schloss (schloss is castle in German). It is about an hour away and thought it was worth the trip.
Braunfels Schloss
Picture with a blue sky and green trees, courtesy of the internet
Ariel view of the castle, again courtesy of the internet
The queen in front of her castle.
Rainy days have their benefits... we parked right next to the castle. This is the front entrance.
The walls were thick and the tops of everything had moss on it like this. It's a lot like Seattle area.
This is the entrance that leads to the gatehouse.
The gatehouse, moss and it was cold and rainy.
We could see turrets over the wall as we walked to the gatehouse.
A look back to the entrance as we approached the gatehouse
The gates have been removed, but the stonework is original, The castle dates back to the 11th century. It has been renovated several times due to war, fires, and new owners.
You can see it was foggy and wet. It actually was worse than this picture shows. I cleared it a little with Photoshop.
We rounded a corner and went up a flight of stone steps and entered a stone arch tunnel with doors on the left side. One of them had a sign that pointed to one of the doors and said museum. We put our money in the slot and pushed through the turn-style to enter the museum. The first rooms had lots of swords, shields, guns and military uniforms. Look at that rifle on the top. There must be a story behind that one.
Some royal frocks. Signage was in German so we didn't get the full story.
This is a case with women's attire of the day
A few helmets and swords
A peek out of the window as we went from one room to another.
After the small museum tour we went through a long dark tunnel with cobblestone steps... it ultimately took us out of the castle and into the village below.
Once we were out of the dark tunnel we followed the cobblestone road down the hill and through some streets of homes.
Looks like someone lives in this gatehouse... there's no moss on the steps.
The road opened up on to the Platz (open area in the center of town) of the village.
We looked back at the cobblestone road we had just walked and could see the castle in the distance.
We walked the village center until the rain got the best of us. Then we walked back up the hill...
through the castle tunnels, and back out to our car. On the way out we stopped in a cafe and asked about a guided tour. We'll come back another day in the spring or summer to enjoy its beauty and history even more.
Farewell to Braunfels Schloss. You can follow this link to their website,
There is a nature preserve nearby and we stopped for a few minutes to take a few pictures.
The black swans and ducks enjoyed the rain and their private swimming hole.
We left the castle, but took with us many memories and mental pictures of this beautiful old castle. The castle website has some pictures of parts of the museum that are reserved for the guided tour.
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