When we awoke this morning, the River Queen was back at its mooring in Frankfurt where we’d boarded it ten days ago. We said goodbye to our new friends and set out with Dave Natale for his old home town of Braumfels, about an hour from Frankfurt. We stopped a few miles short of Braumfels for a first look at Schloss Braumfels.
We continued into town and took a little walk through the Herrengarten and paid our respects to Kaiser Friedrich III who had visited Braunfels during his brief reign in 1888.
We had a full tour of the castle scheduled for the afternoon, but we did go into the outer sections of the castle premises and looked at some of the nice houses (all leased from the Count of Solms-Braunfels).
I found it interesting that some (but not all) of the houses displayed an emblem signifying that they have fire insurance!
The town has its own well, with copious regulations on its use.
We had a light lunch and not-so-light dessert at Cafe Vogel to fortify us for the castle tour.
Dave had arranged for his friend Andrea to lead us on a special tour of the castle; he promised surprises, and Andrea delivered. She had a new practicum (student intern) who was on his first day of his assignment; I wonder what he thought about how the day went.
Andrea told us a lot about the history of the castle and the family. It was first built in the 13th Century and has been in the same family since then. There has been a lot of construction and reconstruction, and it continues today.
Photography is not permitted inside the castle itself; our tour included 14 rooms, each beautifully furnished. One of Andrea’s special additions for our tour was having us wear costumes; we were allowed to photograph that!
Andrea shared many stories with us – so many, that Dave had to ask her to let us leave so we could get back to Frankfurt at a reasonable hour!
It was a very interesting visit indeed.
We returned to Frankfurt and the Flemings Selection Hotel Frankfurt City. We were lazy and had a simple dinner across the street at the Eschenheimer Turm Restaurant – both of us had the salmon Flammkueche. It was inexpensive, tasty, and fast – perfect for the end of a long day.