Marksburg, Köln

 

The next morning, we left Koblenz and took the train to Cologne (Köln).

Koblenz train station

We stayed at the CityClass Hotel am Dom, and our room had a little balcony with a wonderful view of the cathedral. Unfortunately, the room was only available for one night.

After we checked in, we took the train across the river to a little town called Braubach, where we planned to tour a castle called Marksburg.

The trains to this town run every hour, so we caught the 8:58, which -- even though it was late -- got us to the town with lots of time to spare. The castle opened at 10:00. So, we rode around a bit, enjoying the sights - more old buildings, towers, etc. The streets of this town are very quaint -- cobblestoned, narrow, and winding, but we saw people driving cars up them anyway. 

When it was time to head up to the castle, we rode past this tower and followed signs pointing to the castle. However, after just a few minutes of riding, we came to stairs. There was a convenient railing where we could lock up the bikes, so we did that and continued upward on foot. The route to the castle was a combination of stairs and a muddy footpath through the woods. It would have been lovely in nice weather, but of course it was raining again!

When we reached the top, we made sure to notice where we would have to go down to find our bikes.

This castle is open to the public, but you have to join a guided tour. When we paid the admission fee (11 euro - quite reasonable), we were told the tour would be in German, but they gave us a paper in English to help us follow along). 

It turned out our tour group was very small -- a family with three little boys and a man with a dog -- and our guide spoke English. While the main tour was in German, she told us the main points in English. This is the only hilltop castle along the Rhein that was never destroyed, so it is in its more or less original condition. The tour was really very interesting, although I had hoped to be able to go up in the tower. No such luck!

Incidentally, large portions of the tour were outside, and it was raining the whole time, except for a few brief moments when it was snowing! We definitely were not in Germany to escape the fickle Alberta spring weather!

photo from greatcastles,com

After the castle tour, we headed back to the top of the stairs and made our way down. It was raining hard by this time, and the path was slippery as well as muddy, so we were glad to reach the bottom. However, no bikes! Somehow we ended up at a different part of town, where there was also a staircase leading up to the castle.

We thought we would have to retrace our steps, going up again to find out where we had taken a wrong turn, but I had used Map My Walk for the walk up, so I realized I could find our starting point on that map, enter it into Google maps, and hopefully find our way to our bikes. That worked just fine, and we were reunited with our bikes.

By this time, we were cold and wet, so we decided it was time to duck into a warm pastry shop. As usual, it did not disappoint!