Wartburg and Beyond

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29 May 2016

A busy day with a few surprises.

We got up early, drove to the castle and this time secured a prime spot in the car park where we had our breakfast. Wartburg was originally completed in 1172 but left to decay over the centuries and required a major renovation in the 19^th Century. We had a tour of the major rooms, looked at a museum which displayed some impressive items, saw the room where Luther wrote his new testament translation, climbed one of the towers and walked around a footpath on the outside of the walls. A very enjoyable morning.

Before leaving Thuringia we stopped off at another of its towns, Schmalkalden and were surprised to find hundreds of cyclists celebrating the completion of an organized ride. It was a great send off from our time in this interesting and diverse part of Germany.

Then it was a pretty 125k drive south to another historical German town, Karlstadt, where we stayed on a small camper stop on the edge of a carpark with the town’s walls on one side of us and the river Main a few feet away on the other.

The day ended with a violent storm with the sky lit by lightning and thunder crashing around. A water leak through the top of the van's sliding door prevented us going to bed for about an hour until the rain stopped.

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