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Published: April 29th 2013
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After a good night’s sleep for most of us (Ian didn’t fare so well), we were greeted by a wonderful breakfast of different meats, cheeses, smoked salmon, croissants and warm bread with fresh strawberries and yoghurt, it made a good start to the day. It was lovely not having to strike camp but just jump into Oliver and head of for the day’s activities.
Woolly Says – Breakfast was yummy and I didn’t mean to eat all the smoked salmon myself – honest! Oliver was well rested and we only had 4km to go to reach Hoensbroek Castle, originally built in the 13
th century and owned by the Hoensbroek family for most of its life it sounded like it was worth a visit. Pulling up I was slightly disappointed to find no battlements but I could see a turret so having paid our 8 Euro each (approximately £6.10 GBP) and 2.50 Euro for a guide book we went to investigate. Although only a turret remains of the earlier castle is was easy to see which parts of the castle were 17
th century and which parts 18
th by the style of windows. The guide book was really good and
told us to go left, right, up, down etc and explained about each room visited. The old 13
th century turret was very steep to climb with tiny wooden steps going up to the top, I wasn’t keen on the prison at the bottom, apparently you were chained down and had to eat your food from a chiselled out log! Moving into the 17
th century part of the house showed us how starkly they had lived at that time, the attic was awesome and had a mechanical clock with two quite big bells, they chimed while we were in there and nearly deafened us all. The 18
th century parts of the castle were much more ornate with handpainted wallpapers and much more opulence on show, I liked the handpainted ceiling in the study, whoever painted it must have had a very bad neck afterwards! Having admired the moat and garden house we made our way back through the three courtyards and into Oliver.
We had all enjoyed our visit to Hoensbroek Castle and even though we had to stop Woolly going to all the twelve privies the castle had to offer we felt it had been well worth
the stop off. Travelling on to the very pretty town of Valkenburg, we could see the castle mounted on its hilltop in front of us and castle walls forming part of the much newer town landscape, the road systems and parking would not have suited Georgie at all! Having parked Oliver with a delightful view of the ruins we made our way to the ticket kiosk. Nine Euro each (approximately £7.10 GBP) and clutching an English translation sheet for the Velvet cave, and a lovely poster sized map of the castle we waited for the tour of the cave to begin.
Woolly says – No one told me about a cave!!! I decided to cuddle up in Jo’s jacket and was very glad that I did, our Dutch guide spoke no English and as he led us through the Velvet Cave with only a lantern to guide 20 plus of us it was dark, very very dark. With Jo struggling to read the English notes to me and Ian we did pick up that the cave was a secret tunnel from the castle and that the pictures, when we could see them, were done circa 1853 when
tourism reached the town and they decided the tourists needed something to look at. The artwork was really good, with the sandstone coated in charcoal and then the pictures etched out to show scenes out of local history, stories from the town and castle as well as a whole section dedicated to the Americans who liberated the town in September 1944. I was extremely impressed with the church area and the pictures of the Saints and Jesus not to mention the sandstone carved pulpit. Then the guide ruined it by turning his lantern off so we could see what it was really like, see being the operative word as I couldn’t see a tusk infront of my trunk AND it seemed to get even colder, I was very glad to see the sunshine a few minutes later and feel the warmth on my fur. At last we had found a castle with battlements and arrow slits and everything I’m used to seeing in a castle. With the first structural castle having been erected in 1115 and been rebuilt in 14
th century before being pretty much destroyed in the Franco Dutch War in 1682, it is all that epitomises a ruined
castle. With the huge walls of the Knights Hall still standing and areas of Turrets and the battlements it was a great find, the only down side being the amount of graffiti carved into the stone. With really good English explanations on all the information boards we followed the walk round, we even found a small amount of the original castle structure in the central area and the views of the surrounding areas were impressive to say the least.
With Woolly’s paws aching and our feet throbbing we walked the few minutes into the town centre to look at the remaining walls dotted throughout, Woolly, having lost interest in castle walls, was delighted to find two topiary ducks. After taking a snap for him we sampled the local coffee before heading back to Brenkberg Motel and Chaletpark in Schninveld near to Brunssum for a second night. An early start tomorrow as we head into Luxembourg for the next part of the trip.
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