Our next destination is Schiltach, only 40 minutes away. We dropped off our luggage and planned to visit 3 local ruins. Unfortunately, what looked to be 7 and 15 minute drives ended up being slightly delayed due to Google Maps again. Germany just doesn't want to cooperate.
Our first stop, Schenkenburg, was the easiest to find. It was very small, so we walked a few steps up the hill, took a look, and went back down.
The second stop was the biggest pain. Called Ruine Schilteck, Google Maps directed us up a long and curvy rock path up the mountain. Nothing was there of course, so we continued on until we could find a spot to turn around. On the way down, we saw a sign saying that it was .4 km down a more precarious road. We parked the car there and went on foot. Not only was there pretty much nothing to see, as the gate to the tower was locked, but we found proper paved road at the castle itself.
In order to reach the third one, Burgruine Hohenschramberg, Google kept pushing for us to continue on the rocky mountain path. No thanks! We went back down and decided to keep a lookout for road signs. We followed the signs until we found where we were supposed to go. It was a paved road up the mountain. This was more extensive of a castle, with multiple areas to see, and a nice view of the town below.
It was just past 2:00, so it was early enough that we decided to venture an hour away to a very large castle, Hohenzollern, which we had planned to see while at our next stop. However, we discovered yet another castle that we wanted to visit, and time would be tight there, so we pushed it up. It ended up taking us longer than we had anticipated, as the road we were told to take had been shut down for roadwork. Google Maps seemed uninterested in showing us an alternative route until we simply started driving in another direction for a while.
When we finally arrived the sky was gearing up to rain. I took a few shots on our drive up, before the rain began.
At the main parking lot, we bought tickets and it began to rain steadily. We grabbed our ponchos from the car and took advantage of the bus to the top. It stopped raining once we reached the castle. We walked into the inner courtyard and had dinner at the castle restaurant, which proved to be more reasonably priced, with better food, than the local restaurants had been.
We took a walk around the castle walls and returned in time for the final guided tour of the evening, to see some of the inner rooms. It was the only way you were allowed to see the more ornate inner rooms of the castle. It was just four of us on this tour, and we all spoke English, so the tour guide did as well. I found it boring, but Stephanie enjoyed it.
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| This was in the first room of the tour. We were not allowed to take pictures on the tour. It represents the family tree of the owners of the castle. |
We arrived back at the hotel at around 7. This small town is beautiful, and tomorrow we plan to stay around here for the day, relax, and explore.
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