Burg Eltz and First Blister

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so had trouble getting to sleep last night. not sure why but was still awake after 12 and i was dead tired too. didn't help that i had to get up at 6 to get ready and head to the train station. anyways got up on time, and went down for the included breakfast. well yesterday there were croissants and breads and boiled eggs and such. today, because its good friday, just some stale bakers bread, yoghurt and cereal! i felt gypped! luckily i still had some bread and apples from the grocery store yesterday (glad i thought ahead and bought extra, victory!) so i ate them on the train after taking the bus to the station. one train to mannheim, quick change and another to cologne.

right so easter weekend = bad travel time. train was packed. couldn't find a decent hostel. on the plus side i booked on hotwire and managed to get the cologne hilton again for less than a third its real cost! for two nights this time, and its just as lovely as it was last week. a bonus of staying there, when i arrived at 10 i got checked in and given my room right away so stowed the bags, and back to the train station for the train to koblenz, then a quick change to moselkern which is in the mosel river valley. the first train had a 10 minute delay and my connection was only 9 minutes so i was sweatin a bit at the end since the next train wasn't for an hour. ran through the station and made it just in time. saw some people trying to do the same thing get disappointed to see the train pull away.

anyways point of all this was to get to Burg Eltz (Eltz Castle). owned by the eltz family for 33 generations since at least the 13th century. intact all those years including a 5 year siege in teh 1600s which they lost but lost just meant they had to pay taxees to the duke of luxembourg or something. anyways train to Moselkern then a 75 minute hike through the woods. Good directions in my guidebook, the only other way is go rent a car or get a taxi. And so far I have avoided taxis forever (i can only remember a couple in all my travel days) and plus it was a gorgeous day so hike is good. anyways i overestimate what would be available in moselkern. its a tiny village and i couldn't even find a store! i had one half bottle of warm water to do for 5 hours in 25 degree heat. not good. the walk was beautiful though, following Eltz stream through the forest. i tried to imagine it like it was 800 years ago when the castle was first built. even had times when i was the only one around, no car noise, no planes overhead, no trains, nothing but birds and the babbling brook. so strange for europe where it seems like its constantly madness and always surrounded by hundreds of people.

anyways, come around a corner and BAM taking up a whole hillside and larger than life is this monster of a castle. unfortunately its mostlz covered in scaffolding. grrr but still, pretty dramatic setting gotta say. i figure out how to get up the hill (up about 100 sweaty sweaty stairs 25 degrees again today). buy my ticket and they say only german tours today, and i could take a brochure with english explainations. boooo annoying. first thing to the canteen for a drink and it kills me to paz €2.10 (3ish bucks) for a small glass of diet coke she pours out of a 2L bottle but anyways...

i go up into the courtyard and i see a tour just letting out. so i ask this girl if there will be any english tours today, which i had been told no, and believed, but wanted to see if her english was ok and then maybe i'd join her tour and get a little more out of it. she says just a minute and goes in behind some door. two seconds later shes back and says meet here in a half hour for an english tour! woop!

so i go down to the treasury in the meantime. wow beautiful stuff, priceless artifacts going back to the 12th century. gold plated jesus, guns, swords, knives, armour, dishes, porcelain, silverware, etc etc. very nice.

head back up to the meeting point, just as shes calling out for whoever wants to join the english tour. i'm the only one! so they arranged a tour just for me which was good and bad. good because i like english. bad because then i have to act totally interested at all times and be a good boy and not sneak any pictures. fortunately some germans asked when the next german tour was and must not have liked the answer because 4 more people joined us for a big tour of 5 (there were at least 30 in the group ahead of us). still couldnt sneak any pics but at least it wasnt awkward like the time i toured the architects house in Ljubljana in a tour group of one.

anyhow they have lots of old furniture, some rooms are still in their 1500s decorations floors ceilings and all. lots of fireplaces which were just flat stone floors with a big overhang kinda like a fume hood. the rooms got really dirty and sooty apparantly except a couple of rooms which had stoves which were stoked from the room behind teh wall. convenient. there was a bed from the 1500s which was huge, with three steps on each side to get in it, and intricately decorated all around. there were huge tapestries, a couple from 1700s depicting exotic animals seen on adventures abroad. hmmm whatelse... oh yes more weapons. toilets everywhere which flushed using rainwater (advanced!).

cool getting to see how the elite lived so long ago, and how beautiful all their stuff was. oh right and the kitchen. a big device to lower and raise the pot over the fire to control the temperature. the oven, which was made of stone, was filled with coals or fire or whatever until it was hot, then it was cleaned out so that bread and other stuff could be put in. also ther ewas a HUGE section of an oak trunk used for cutting meat on! all i could think was how much meat juice soaked into that thing over the years. e coli! haha guess theres no worries now after a few hundred years.

tour was 45 mins, and afterwards i went to the cafe fors omethign to eat. was too afraid to hike back to town and then have to get two trains before seeing more food, as i already hadnt eaten in hours, was hot and sweaty and had a hike ahead of me. so got a bratwurst (sausage), fries and another diet coke. about 10 bucks so not too bad considering. then also got an ice cream after. onlz 90 cents lol

head back to town, and have a few minutes to spare before the train so i try to get some pics. well i walk through a bit of grass and all of a sudden the bottom of my left leg is itchy. turns red. uh oh poison ivy or whatever!! i think altho the itchy onlz lasted a few mins but theres still a rash and a few hive like bumps on it. sigh. mz thumbnail is also still half black. and i have a huge blister on my right foot just below the great toe. but on the bright side im pretty sure this is the longest ive ever gone on a trip without a blister so good and bad.

anyways back in cologne now. not sure what to do tomorrow. was thinking about taking a rhine cruise, since thezre covered by my railpass but the schedule isnt the best this early in the season and also i think ill be bored doing that all day by myself! might trz to find some kind of beach or something i dunno.

then easter sunday heading to würzburg, the last day of my railpass! from there i am gonna spend monday in nürnberg seeing the nazi sights, and a few hrs in rothenberg if i can find the time. then tuesday check out of the hostel there, see the sights in würzburg and then head to frankfurt. which reminds me i should book a hotel. since mz flight is wednesday afternoon at 130ish id like to be in town the day before.

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Comments

[Nan]

Easter
Hi Jason: Happy Easter! Following you along --Cologne is a beautiful and interesting city, steeped in history. Wonder what it's like to live there and make a living? Do we all look at our native homes and think how tame they are? (lol) When I left the U.K. I was dismayed to find I couldn't travel to another town or city in an hour or so --Mt. Pearl just didn't hack it! Oh, well, you win a few, lose a few. The concentration camp sites fascinate me as a record of a dark time in history which I lived through --I'll never forget the pictures of the emaciated survivors we saw in the newspapers of the day. Visiting the actual site was impressive, brought it all back. Seeing them is like revisiting history. I'm gald you're getting the opportunity to experience it. Looking forward to seeing you home soon. Nan