Pete had most of the day free on Saturday so we decided to travel about an hour to see a castle. Here castles are sometimes called a Berg. So we set out to see Berg Eltz. We were hoping Megan would sleep on the way, but this did not happen. So we followed the directions to the castle and come to a little parking area with a trailer, still we can see no castle, but the sign says Berg Eltz. But Peter, talks to the lady at the parking area, who seems to think we shouldn't park there because we have Megan and she says its a 1.6 kilometer walk(this is all in German mind you, so I don't understand anything that is being said) or we can drive 18 kilometers and park a little closer. We decide we have our beat up German stroller and we don't mind walking a little ways. So though the lady looks at us a little disapproving and is probably shaking her head and saying crazy Americans, we pay to park.
So we load Meg in her stroller and head down the paved little road. Then abruptly the paving stops, still no castle in site, but maybe its just around the bend. The path is very rocky by this point and our old German stroller is not enjoying bumping, bumping along, though Meg still is at this point. Then as we head further down the path, and now there are tree roots crisscrossing the path and now Megan is no longer enjoying the bumpy ride either. The path comes to a little glen area where it breaks off in a couple directions, we head up the steep path because we can see the castle through the trees. We have to ditch our stroller half way up because even without Megan it is now almost impossible to push. This is the view from the top of the hill.
No we look around for the rest of the trail and it seems to scale down the hill side, so we begin scaling down the steep hill, really having to make our own trail as the trail doesn't seem to be very good. Honestley, it was exceddingly steep and the whole time Pete and I are saying how crazy this is, so we finally get down the hill safely and meet up with the real trail, and realize somehow we missed the real trail. As we come up the trail to the castles all these people are standing at the top, apparently they had been watching the "crazy Americans" scale down the mountainside with a toddler. Probably not the safest thing we have ever done with Meg, but Pete did an awesome job.
We finally make it up to the castle and buy our tickets. We go and start the tour with a group of Germans, in German. ( I get a paper with the English translation for .60 Euros) and the tour starts. Well about 2 minutes into the tour Meg decideds she is done and begins to cry...loudly. We tried everything as the people in our group are staring us down. Finally we decided to leave and our Tour guide says, why don't you take turns, so Pete takes Meg out to the little restraunt to get a bratwurst and some french fries and I stayed and finished the tour. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the tour, but the inside of the castle was awesome. The furniture, the painintgs and tapestrieis, the weapons, and the metal work were all so neat. I can't believe the quality of the workmanship.
Then Pete and I switched. Did I mention it has been raining off and on since we got up to the castle and its cold. While Pete is taking the tour I chatted with some Americans and chased Meg. When Pete finished we headed back up the trail (sticking to the real trail). Meg decides she wants to take a nap and only wants Mommy to carry her...yeah I was dying. As soon as she had fallen asleep I handed her off to Pete, we retreived our stroller and walked the rest of the way back. I was trying desperately to not get too out of breathe but I think I was lucky just to make it all the way back to the car pushing the stroller. The moral of this story is when a little old German lady says you should drive to the other parking area, you should probably listen to her. But the castle was still worth the hike.
