Burg Eltz

(this photo is from the internet....No crane and construction.... Pretty!)

Our first official Family Outing here in Germany. We headed to the Castle nearest us called Burg Eltz. Eltz is the family name and Burg means castle. It takes about an hour to get there and it was a fun experience. We had forgotten to get Euro's back on base and so we were probably 10 minutes away and needed to find a bank so I stopped at a gas station and asked the lady, sprechen sie englisch? She held her fingers up in a "very little" kind of way so I said Bank money?? And she drew directions on a paper and with one more lady telling us it was across the river we finally found it. Kinda funny that took us a little over an hour to do. :)

Then it was off to the castle. We parked the (friends) car and hiked down a trail for about 25 minutes till we made it to Burg Eltz. It was really cool. It cost us 18 euro to have a tour and then when we got lunch for 2 things of fries and 2 fried sausages and 2 small glasses of pop cost us 14 Euro which is over 16 dollars in American money. Now we know that we will make sure and pack lunches next time. ;) Things are quite expensive here in Germany from what I have heard and some that I have seen. I went to a second hand store and everything is "high" priced for me who is cheap. So we will see how that goes.

So inside the castle we saw paintings, Finnish Tapestries, armor, swords, guns, Jewlery, beds, chairs, engravings that date back to the renaissance in the 1500's. It was amazing to know you were looking at original hundreds of year old things. Things that I thought were pretty interesting was the Contess' room which had paintings of as young as 13 months old babys to 8 year old children in fine clothes, wigs, armor and beyond. It was like they painted an adults body and put the childs head on it so they would appear the way the parents wanted them to be then what they really were. It was kinda crazy. There was also a little tiny loft stairs off of the bedroom which was the nurses room who took care of the children because the women didn't back then.... Sad.

Anyway, It was a really neat experience to get out today together and experience a piece of history and natures Beauty. It was a very good day. Goal in future to pay less for lunch. :)