The fourth post from our weeklong visit with my mother-in-law Nina in southwestern Germany:
For those following along without the use of an RSS reader, I’ve posted my notes from Koln and Bonn chronologically, so skip down to the next post for the recap.
Back to the castle portion of the program:
German word of the day: Kartoffelplätzchen!
My sole requirement for the trip to Germany: I wanted to stay in a castle. The countryside is littered with them, and we found lodging at the Earl of Daun’s old place perched on top of a large hill in the center of town.
There’s no moat, no drawbridge, but this castle has 30 guest rooms, a spa, wireless internet service and two house cats. When we arrived, church bells were clanging away outside, and a light snow was falling. In short: picturesque.
On the ride from Bonn we tried to visit a few other castles, but distance and inclement weather kept us from our intended targets. Fortunately castles pop up around every twist of the highway in the Rhineland, so we stopped off at this one:
Unfortunately, it was closed for the season.
Still, it had a nice view.
A street market sprang up overnight in Daun, effectively blocking our exit from the hotel. An interested crowd of at least a dozen locals watched us attempt to find a way out, some pointing in various directions and others shooting dirty looks. You’d think the hotel management might say, “oh by the way, you’re going to drive right into a street market at the bottom of the driveway. Take your first right past the underwear stand.”
I’ve never seen so much underwear on sale. I bought a pair of woolen socks to get in the spirit of things.
German picture of the day: buttons for sale.
