Week 50: Burg Lahneck and Koblenz Bike Ride

We were on the hunt for more castles and were planning on touring two on the Rhine, but didn't get out of the house early enough in the day, so we toured one castle and had coffee at the other. The first castle we stopped at was Lahneck. The castle had a few notable stories regarding it.

Burg Lahneck

One was regarding its dungeon, which was on ground level at the base of the tower, instead of built like a basement. The really weird thing was that there was no way to access the dungeon from the ground. The victims had to be lowered down by rope. It wasn't clear to me how the torturers made it down there. Perhaps they had a ladder.

Another notable story was from the mid-1800s. There was a British family with a 17-year-old daughter vacationing in the area. The daughter went out with her sketchbook to do some landscape drawings and made her way up to the castle, which at that time was mostly a ruin. In an attempt to climb to the top of the tower, the stairs collapsed and she fell. When she didn't return that evening, search parties were sent out. Unfortunately, her body (or, rather, skeleton) wasn't found until 9 years later, when some work was being done to clean up the castle. Her diary with a few entries was found near her body, showing she was alive after her fall, but was unable to attract any attention to her plight. A very chilling story.

We found the tour, though in German, to be very good. They did give us a translation of tour on paper and the guide was nice enough to translate some of the stories he told that were not on the sheet. They also did a couple of really interesting things that we had not seen at the other castles we have visited. First, the tour guide demonstrated a number of the items he discussed, including an unique fold-out card table and a lock-box (cue 2000 election campaign joke about Social Security here--the Guild Chest on this page shows a good example) with 11 locking points. This is very notable, as generally you only get to see these items from a bit of a distance as displays and don't get to see how they work.

The other tidbit on the tour was regarding the older wooden floors that were still in some areas of the castle. In most castles we have visited, they lay down some modern carpets or otherwise cover the area to protect the floor from the tread of visitors. Here they instead had us all put on slippers over our shoes. They had a big bin sitting outside of one of the rooms and we all then slid around on the floor once we made our way inside. It was an interesting way to do it and gave us an interesting story to tell.

Our next stop was at Marksburg Castle, where we arrived just after the last English tour set out, so we sat instead and had a coffee and enjoyed the sun. 

As a real goal for the day was to get a bike ride in, we took a drive from Marksburg into Koblenz and had a nice ride along the Rhine. The picture below was taken at the spot we turned around, just a little ways outside the city. Pretty cool abandoned factory, huh?

Hulk along the Rhine in Koblenz

On biking back to Koblenz, we stopped for some food at a cafe near the river. Though it was a little chilly, we took the chance to sit outside. I had a really great (though a bit salty...) Spaezle dish shown in the photo below--with a class of halbtrocken (have dry) wine.

Spaezle with Veggies!