Hohenzollern Castle

-
After Steve's work week near Freudenstadt, we traveled to Stuttgart for the weekend. On the way there, we stopped at Hohenzollern Castle. Steve had visited the castle on a previous work trip and he thought I would enjoy it. Admission included a guided tour of the castle. Unfortunately, our timing was off. It would be several hours before the English-language tour was conducted. We were told we could go on the German-language tour and just use an English guidebook for reference. I wasn't keen on that idea. If I'm going to rely upon a guidebook for information, I'd much rather have the freedom to move about at my own pace. So we skipped the tour. We had a wander around the grounds, visited the two private chapels, and had a spot of refreshment at the outdoor cafe. It made for a very pleasant couple of hours.

Hohenzollern Castle is the ancestral seat of the Kings of Prussia. The first written mention of the castle dates to 1267, although there is a Hohenzollern House documented as early as 1061. At least two castles stood on the site before King William Frederick IV began construction of the current castle in 1850.

The castle sits atop Berg Hohenzollern, a nearly 768 foot bluff. You park at the bluff's base and a shuttle takes you up the steep incline. It takes you about ten minutes to walk to the castle's courtyard. from the shuttle drop-off point. It was a warm, sunny day, but it made for a pleasant walk. 

This would make an excellent prison. It's got that dark and gloomy aspect to it.

Stairs leading down to a small garden area tucked between the outer wall and the castle's interior.

The imposing neo-Gothic castle

The castle enjoys stupendous views of the surrounding countryside.



You can walk around the perimeter of the castle, which is ringed by statues of the Prussian kings.








The exterior of one of the two chapels within the castle.

A shot taken within the courtyard.

An ornate door knocker. When I first saw it, I was reminded of one of the many versions of 
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that I've seen. In it, the door knocker came to life. I half expected this fellow to follow suit and give me a growl. Or maybe a friendly meow. He's kind of cute.

An interior shot of Christ Chapel and its lovely stained glass windows.



A beautiful ceiling. Regular readers may recall that I have a thing for ceilings in historical buildings such as the castle. Some of the most ornate embellishments are often above your head.





This statue of St. Michael slaying a dragon is in the second chapel, named appropriately St. Michael Chapel. This is the only part of the medieval castle to remain intact. It dates to 1461.


The chapel possesses a simple elegance. It's not as ornate as Christ Chapel.

The exquisite stained glass in St. Michael Chapel.

A medieval cannon

Yet another stunning view

The little cafe on the castle grounds decorated the tables with potted flowers. 

This is a popular German soft drink. It's a mixture of Coca-Cola and orange. Folks who frequent Disney's Epcot Center will be familiar with it if they spend any time in the Coca-Cola area with drinks from around the world.  It's not a bad concoction, but I think I prefer cherry Coke.



I was fascinated by the level of detail in this statue. His leggings have creases in them!

What I presume to be an old gate house.

Here is a parting shot of Hohenzollern Castle from a distance. It is a rather imposing sight.

Now with a bit more zoom.

And now maximum zoom.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time to drop the curtain

-
When my Mom passed away in March 2018, my zest for this blog fell dramatically. She was my biggest fan and enjoyed combing through the photos I'd post. But I tried to continue on because my Aunt Jody also enjoyed the blog. Well, she passed away early last year. It's time to call it for this blog. The hubby and I moved to Ireland late last year and I have ideas for an ex-pat in Ireland blog. When we were considering the move, I found little current blogs on the subject. I'm thinking maybe I can fill a gap. But Back and Forth Across the Pond is done now. It was fun and I hope you enjoyed it. Hail and well met. Deanne
Read more

Inverewe Gardens

-
Image
We stopped at Inverewe Gardens on our way home at the recommendation of one of Steve's work mates. It's a property within The National Trust for Scotland, so admission is free to Trust members. We had been pondering joining since we first moved here and decided to just bite the bullet and sign up whilst we were at the gardens. We only have to visit about four more places to have the membership pay for itself. Since the Culloden Battlefield near us in Inverness is part of the Trust, and our membership also grants us access to England's National Trust locations, we figure our membership will end up saving us quite a bit within the year. Inverewe Gardens was once the estate of Osgood Mackenzie. He built his mansion house on a rocky promontory overlooking Loch Ewe in the mid-19th century. He dreamed of having a walled garden of flowers and vegetables and set about excavating a raised beach and building retaining walls and terraces. By 1870, Osgood had created a productive gar...
Read more

Bus, Wall, Pavement, and Park: A Wander Around York

-
Image
The heatwave finally came to an end on our final day in York. It was offered much appreciated relief. We had afternoon tea scheduled in the mid-afternoon, so we broke our day. The morning included an open-top bus tour and a wander along the city's medieval wall; and the afternoon included a stroll through a surprisingly expansive park. We bought a ticket for one of the ubiquitous Hop On-Hop Off bus tours. Pretty much every major city has one of these. Heck, Inverness has one! The ticket is good for 24 hours, so you can actually use the bus as transport if you want. That had been our original intention, but we ended up just doing the hour-long tour and that was the end of it. But we enjoyed it. And I saw bits of York I had never seen before. And learned some interesting tidbits. The tour was broadcast in English, but if you had headphones you could select other languages. Like Kids English  and Yorkshire. When the "bus" part of the day was o...
Read more