Germany - The land of castles!

Since Croatia I've been in Germany. I've done some traveling, some recharging my batteries, and a lot of laundry. I completely unpacked my bag for the first time in four months and it felt amazing! I laid everything out, organized, and threw away stuff that I really don't need and didn't even realize was in there. I needed to sit still for a minute after almost four months of travel. The aforementioned friend I went to Croatia with lives in Germany so I have been using that to my advantage. Don't worry though, I've also done some traveling! There was a small wine festival, dinner with some old friends as well as a lunch with another, and you guessed it... lots of castles! Here are the highlights...

I went on a full day tour (and I mean full day, it started at 0630) that toured a castle, two different wine tastings, a cruise down the Rhine River, a traditional German lunch, and a cable car ride....

I went to the Rheinstein castle, a family owns and lives in the castle!

Several rooms in the castle were set up as they would have
been, this is the princesses' bedroom, the bed is tiny
because she sat upright so she wouldn't ruin her hair,
the price of beauty!

Some of the many castles from the boat on the Rhine...

The Rheinstein Castle

I guess this is a famous shopping street

View from the top of the cable car ride

I went to the town of Heidelberg which has it's very own castle!

The city from the castle

Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I and granddaughter of Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots), married Fredrick and they lived in this castle. This gate was named for her and given as a birthday present from her husband. It was supposedly built in one day.

I know it's a bit hard to see in the below picture but there are three rows of statues. The first row are heroes (Hercules is in there), the second are the virtues (strength, faith, charity, hope, and justice), and the third are the planetary gods (Saturn, Mars, Venus, Mercury, etc). The architect did that because he believed, "A monarch should rule with the strength of the heroes, wisdom of the virtues, and luck of the gods."

Justice

This wine barrel is HUGE! It's made of oak, was build in 1750, can hold 228,000 liters, and has only been filled twice.

For lunch I had shwarma! Fact about me... one of my favorite foods in the world is shwarma and I had delicious shwarma in Heidelberg. If you've never had shwarma it's the middle-eastern version of a gyro and you should immediately go find it! ALSO.... this restaurant had.... ICED TEA! Now, this is one thing I don't get. The rest of the world has our television, they have our shitty fast food restaurants, they have starbucks, and a lot of stuff is in English but they don't have iced tea! Another fact, my favorite thing to drink at a restaurant is iced tea. I'm not a soda person and sometimes you just don't want water and iced tea is just the best. It's also the best after a night of a bit too much drinking. Well I haven't had legit iced tea, and I mean brewed tea poured over ice probably since I was back in the states and did my last Panera run. I know, first world problems, I'm not complaining just explaining how excited I was!!!

Do you see the iced tea?!?

 After lunch I walked around the adorable little town and I have to say I love German home decor stores. They're small so not super overwhelming like Crate and Barrel for example and have great little finds!

 Another day was spent mostly in traffic BUT we did get to the Neuschwanstein Castle AKA Disney Castle. The weather unfortunately was shit which produced shit pictures of the castle so the picture below I took of a postcard I bought. One of you is going to get it in the mail too!!!! We also did the tour of the inside which I really enjoyed (especially because it got us out of the torrential downpour we were stuck in) but photography isn't allowed inside.

There are three castles right in the same area and this is a
view of another castle from the Disney Castle.

I'm currently in Berlin for the next three nights. This is the first time I've been alone in a LONG time. I thought I would be traveling alone a lot but I've been very lucky and have spent very little time alone. I think it is good to be alone, it forces you out of your comfort zone, but experiences are more enjoyable when you have someone to share them with. I've heard a lot of really great things about this city so I'm excited to explore it and go on a free walking tour tomorrow. It's been a long time since I've done one of those too! After this I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing or where I'm going, if you'd like to vote on my next adventure leave a comment!