Burg Eltz

Last month I embarked on a road trip with two other moms and twelve kids (!!!) to a place between Trier and Koblenz to see this:

Isn't it magnificent!!
This is a medieval castle nestled above the Moselle River. It has been owned by three branches of the same family for 33 generations. You can read more about the history here or here . This is the view that you get as you leave the car park and walk down the path. It was a steep 800 meters down to the castle along a curvy road (and a fun walk uphill. Eeeek.)

We stopped to take a few pictures and climb up some rocks.

This is the long road leading to the castle. Scenic, yes?
This is the view from that window in the wall. It is a long way down!!

After lunch, we went inside for a tour of some parts of the castle. viewed the treasury, and had ice cream. There were some very interesting features in the castle like the dragon around the water drain pipe, the non-bolted spears and weapons in the weapons room (the two-year-olds discovered this, surprisingly).
Here is the (loose) weaponry. Eek. Wouldn't that be fun to have "the child" who pulls down the weapons as the guide is speaking?? I'm so fortunate that we noticed. Several months ago, we were "shushed" during our Cochem tour by the guide because Logan was whining. Blah.The following pictures were taken inside the courtyard. Apparently a family (or is it two) still reside in the castle. Cool, yet I believe it would get old dealing with all of the tourists.

Next, we had ice cream (eis). We don't have any pictures of this. I was either enjoying my own chocolate cone and talking with the moms, or I was wiping multiple sweet, sticky faces and fingers.

Since the kids had behaved (erhem, most of the time, really) we went down to the river to play in the stream. They loved it!! The little boys stood there throwing rocks, both small and large into the water. We realized it was fruitless to tell them to stop when this 70-ish German man rolled up his trousers, waded out and threw some rocks with his granddaughter. We laughed about it, even with the nice German man, who did speak some English. The girls were more adventurous and waded further along the stream.


The day ended with a stop at a McDonald's in Trier where we took up residence for quite a while so the kids played at the playground and moms chatted. We stayed out way past bedtime, but it was worth it!


As we left McDonald's I noticed this right next to McDonald's and thought it was ironic, yet a marketable idea. McFit is a fitness place where you have the option of paying by the hour or month. I guess you can eat your Hamburger Royale (i.e. Quarter Ponder) and work it off next door!?! Has this idea made it to the USA? I have been away too long to know.