Wertheim

This was a spontaneous trip. It was a nice Saturday, maybe a little hot, and we were doing nothing. We had planned to just sit at home but after breakfast I looked at Colby and said "I want to do something today" So we decided it would be cool to find a castle ruin. I hoped on Facebook and found the suggestion of Wertheim. I then googled it and realized it was pretty close to us. So we loaded up the kids and headed out.

We found a parking garage and then headed first to the castle ruins. The castle is of course on the top of a hill over looking the old city and the river. The ruins are very well preserved and there is a restaurant within the ruins. We skipped the restaurant and went on to explore the ruins. The palace face is completely there along with a two towers. One had a couple steps left of the spiral staircase and the other you could go up in. There was a whole part of the ruins that we couldn't get to and there was also a theater type area with chairs set up that was shut off to us that day. We love visiting castle ruins as the kids can basically run around and no one cares. We don't have to tell them to be quiet or don't touch something. Germany is full of them too which is amazing.


From the top of the castle we could see everything in the city and they had amazing maps pointing out what different points were. After a little snack break at the castle we took a stair case down to the two churches right below the castle. The first is more of a chapel. Inside was some pieces from the original church I would assume. Most everything is in German so I can't know for sure. There was also a huge painting.

Across the street from the chapel was the big church that is still in use today. They were doing some renovation and restoration at the alter while we were there but it was still beautiful. The had a metal globe with the continents welded on which I thought was very unique. We were able to just sit inside the church for a little bit as we listened to the huge organ the had in the back of church play. Even the kids just sat quietly in awe of the church and the music. The atmosphere was just amazing.

This was the first church we have visited that was playing music while we were inside and it just seemed magically. This church also had a guest book. I enjoy signing guest books now since we are so far from our "home of record" as the Army likes to call it. Even though our current home is here in Ansbach I always like to sign that we are from South Dakota, USA. I would guess a lot of these places don't get a lot of visitors from South Dakota and many Europeans probably don't even know where it is. Which I completely understand. I didn't know much about where european countries were until we moved here.

After we visited the church, the kids were getting hungry. It was pretty hot but that wouldn't of made of difference, they of course wanted ice cream. There just happened to be an ice cream shop right across the street from the church. So we got ice cream and then found a bench and a kids train to sit and enjoy are ice cream and just relax a little. We then just wondered around the town taking in the site and looking for someplace to get a postcard. Of course everything closes pretty early in Germany so by 3 or 4 everything was closing down. By the time we wondered around enough to find the tourist information center they were closed. We could see inside that they had post cards so I was a little frustrated but oh well it happens I guess. At least I have my own pictures to remember the place. The cousins just didn't get a postcard from there. It ended up being a really cool day trip for us.