Schloss Neuenberg

This weekend we decided to follow up a recommendation from Mr. Wessner, one of the attorneys Josh works with, to visit the Neuenberg Castle just outside of Freyburg. The weather was pretty dreary, it rained on an off all day, but decided that we weren’t going to let that stop us from what turned out to be a really fun trip.
When we got to Freyburg, we were a little surprised to find that the train station had been all boarded up, and it barely offered any shelter from the rain, which had unfortunately picked up a bit. We could already see the castle perched on its hill above the city, so we decided to follow the other tourist-looking folks from the train to find our way to the castle. Unfortunately, the rain proved too much, so we took a short detour into the town to look for an umbrella. Freyburg seems to pride itself for its wine, vineyards cover many of the hillsides, and grape vines grow on many of the buildings. Catering to tourists on a Saturday didn’t seem to a high a priority. We walked around essentially empty streets full of beautiful little scenes.
After a few minutes of wandering, we found a drugstore with a few umbrellas, and from there we decided to venture into the center of town before climbing up to the castle. There was a great church and several other buildings that were fun to see, but the castle called.

There was a nice set of stairs that wound its way back and forth up the hill, and although we’ve gotten a little out of shape on our chocolate and wurst diet here, we managed to make it to the top.
The castle had several courtyard areas that offered some great views of the valley below. Inside, a portion of the castle has been restored and now houses a museum that shows how the castle was built and what life was like in the castle. We really liked the exhibits, and it was fun to wander up and down the ancient hallways.

One of the most notable portions of the castle is the double chapel. The people living in the castle attended in the main chapel upstairs, but they had a grate in the floor that they would open up so that people could gather in a similar hall down stairs and listen to the services.













The weather was quite a bit colder than it’s been for a lot of our trip, but Ainslie kept her feet warm in a nifty little pair of Nikes from Aunt Breezy. We kept them covered most of the trip, but people at the train station thought they were awesome. We think they’re pretty cool too.

The gardens around the castle were pretty nice too. They had flowers, several different varieties of grapes, and of course, more spectacular views of the beautiful German countryside.
When we had seen everything up top, we headed back down to the city for a bit of apple streudel before catching our train, but Freyburg was again uninterested in our tourist dollars. Turns out almost everything in the town closes at 1 on Saturday (13:00), so we had a wurst (again) and headed back to wait for our train back to a city that stays open a bit later.

The trip was lots of fun. We’ve really enjoyed the chance to get out and see some of the sites around here. This week we’re hoping to get out to cross a few more things off of our “Germany” list before we head out to warmer climes on Saturday . . .