The Trail is Clearly Marked

Welcome to my delayed post about Saturday, 16 July. Still in Germany and at full force since it was the weekend, we packed ourselves and some water bottles into the Imigs' two cars heading toward Braunfels, Germany. Silke was in the lead in the Ford diesel minivan with the "navi" as they call the GPS with the girl children and Brian, so Michael, the boys and I followed in the Ford wagon. We joined a guided tour in English of the Braunfels Schloss (castle) at noon.

The castle was as cool as you'd imagine a centuries-old German castle would be. Julia was the princess who got married off at a young age; Peter and Jacob donned chainmail armor as knights. The guide spun numerous tales of history and language and tradition. I swear I spotted a Rembrandt in one of the art rooms and we learned that the current prince's family even sends their children to public school now (versus their private, even lonely, education of the past).

After our tour, we were pretty hungry so we dined at the closest restaurant we could find, right at the more heavily guarded entrance to the castle. That's us under the green and red umbrella. And "Jetzt ist Pfifferling zeit!" so Michael and I had delicious in-season chanterelle mushroom salads, while the rest of the Imigs and Brian selected various sausages. Julia even smiled about her noodles with mixed vegetables baked with cheese and Lucy was satisfied with tomato soup and french fries (while sharing her ketchup with Charlotte).

Before we headed off on the "well-marked" trail, the kids played at a playground and found this park entrance where they could practice their skills as guards (shown are Julia and Jacob). After a few failed attempts to find the trailhead, we figured out that all the signs for the trail were facing the opposite direction, so we kept having to look backwards to confirm we were still going the right way. We did drag the kids along past a farm and toward some woods, but multiple pleas for "the auto" (pronounced the German way, ow-toe) finally wore us parents down and we turned back, almost losing Julia on a bench where she waited for pick up.

I think Michael felt badly about the not-completed hike, but we did spend some time outside, we definitely walked a lot of steps if not always in the right direction, the castle was awesome, and we got too see another town filled with fachwerk. More wonderful hosting and tour-guide skills from Michael and Silke. Earlier I had been able to squeeze in shopping at a pottery store in Langgons and bought a lovely little plate that will always remind me of this visit to Germany with them.