Germany week 2

We continued our tour of castles on Saturday with a trip to Annweiler and the castle called Trifels. Trifels is an important castle in German history, since the Salian emperors kept the national treasure there. Only the Habsburgs finally transferred it to Vienna. A replica of the imperial crown is displayed here; the original is, off course, in Vienna. The building today is a reconstruction, that has not much to do with its origins, but rather how 19th century artists and architects imagined, it must have looked like in the 11th century. The castle is high above the town of Annweiler and has an open view in all directions. It can see several major travel routes. International attention was given to the Trifels by its most famous prisoner, King Richard Lionheart. As you might remember the Plantagenet King was captured by the German emperor Henry IV. on his way back from the crusade and held for ransom in 1193-94. Inside the castle is a quite interesting exhibition about the life and times of King Richard.

The town of Annweiler was hosting a medieval fair (Richard Loewenherz Fest) that weekend, which gave everything so much more character. I have been to many medieval fairs, but it is always more fun if it is in the right setting. It seemed that the whole town had dressed up and medieval junkies came from far and wide. The girls are looking forward to go again and wear costumes (thanks, Karla). There was a lot of medieval style food and drink (no Soda cans), leather, cloth, pottery products and an actual market selling homemade cheese, sausages, jams etc. A lot of the junk that you see in the U.S. at those occasions was missing. It all fit the theme. The girls were very impressed, when several men carrying a pig on a spit passed us so it could be roasted on an open fire in the town square.

Our medieval trip was followed just two days later by a trip to Strasbourg in Alsace. Both girls were very excited to go to another country. Off course you can hardly see the border crossings anymore. We turned on the radio to show them that the language had changed to French. It was a beautiful sunny day. We wandered through town from Place Kleber to the old tanners district, which is called Petite France. It has been a while since I have been here and it seems there are always new things to discover. We had lunch in a restaurant with everything that means in France. We spent a good 2 hours on our 3 courses, an excruciating time with the children. It is so easy to forget, how things are done in other countries.