The husband and I just had a fantastic weekend celebrating not only my 25th birthday but also 6 months of married life! The time sure has been flying... Friday night we started out the evening at a local pub with two delicious banana beers and while some of you might cringe at the sound of it, they are actually really yummy! Followed up with a fantastic german meal of "jagershitznel", potatoes, more beer and a fruity shot of some unknown local schnapps. We took the short walk home in the rain to finish up the night with ice-cream (we decided to break our diet for 24 hours so we could properly celebrate).
Saturday we went on another full day USO trip and just so happened to have the same tour guide as our trip to Mainz, luckily she didn't keep me up with her history lessons during our two hour bus trip but I had taken dramamine to help with my motion sickness so I was pretty much passed out for a good portion of the drive. Our first stop was the town of Erbach where we went on a private tour of the count of Erbach's castle. My favorite part was when you first entered the castle the entry way was lined floor to ceiling with the largest atypical antler mounts. It was an impressive collection that put Cabela's display to shame... The first room we walked through was display case after display case of guns. They were amazing, a few had the most ornate carving, inlaid with ivory or pearl. One of the guns was a duck hunting gun that was at least 5 feet long, it took two people to aim and shoot! They had an old "grenade" type launcher that was about a foot and half long and apparently had a recoil/kick back so bad that the shooter usually ended up with broken bones. We then grabbed a pair of slippers and headed up the stairs, slippers were required because the second floor had all of the original flooring and they wanted to preserve the castle as much as possible. The stair case was also lined with more antlers and it led up to a room where the count had mounted all of his trophy bucks dating back about 500 years ago. Our tour guide informed us that deer 500 years ago weighed an average of 500 kilos while deer today average a weight of about 150 kilos. This did help to explain the massive antlers that filled the room. We then headed into another part of the castle that was filled with boring old furniture and pictures (stuff I was clearly not interested in...) After suffering through the boring section we filed back downstairs into the knights armory! There were full knight armor displayed throughout the room, real weapons used during the time period as well as horse armor and chain mail. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed on the tour but I did manage to sneak a couple.... We finished up the tour and headed outside where thankfully it was sunny and warm! After spending a couple of minutes checking out the town we headed to our next stop.
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| The knights armory room |
Michelstadt was a small medieval town just a couple of minutes down the road from Erbach. This is where the Easter Egg festival was being held. I have learned that Germans LOVE their festivals and there is never a shortage of things to celebrate! The town was surrounded by what used to be an old moat and even had one of the old watch towers still intact. The festival took place inside of a toy museum and artists from all over came to display and sell their etched, carved or hand painted eggs. It was amazing what these artist could do with a simple egg. Justin and I each picked out an egg to add to our collection of knick knacks from around the world and headed out to test the local cuisine. Our tour guide highly recommended a restaurant/brewery where we sat down and ate a hearty german lunch, complete with locally brewed beer. However lunch did not sit to well with me and we spent the rest of our free time relaxing on a park bench while I tried to keep all of the food down. Luckily I recovered quickly and held down everything for the rest of the trip.
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| Locally brewed beer |
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| The old moat around the town |
The last and final stop of the day took us back into another part of Erbach where they have the largest and one of kind Ivory Museum. Once again no photographs were allowed but I did feel compelled to snag a couple... It was incredible to see the detail carved into the huge pieces of Ivory. The most impressive piece was a giant ship depicting seven chinese gods celebrating with local fishermen. There was also a four foot carved ivory crucifix that was amazing. The majority of the pieces were carved from antlers NOT elephant tusks. We finished up with the museum and headed into the gift where we decided we had to have something carved from Ivory to commemorate our trip. Immediately a little tiny frog caught my eye and I knew I had to have it, Justin gave in and reluctantly paid 24 euros for a carving the size of my pinky nail. Which we then found out was carved from a piece of mammoth tusk, it was certified and everything, making it quite the legitimate purchase! We headed back to the bus and both of us fell asleep the whole way home, exhausted from our daily adventure.
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| Carved Ivory |
Sunday we spent the majority of the day relaxing. We took a quick trip into Ramstein to sign up for a tutorial on how to use the German train next Monday, grabbed lunch and headed back home to finish up season one of "Walking Dead" a great TV show about a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately it started snowing again this morning so there will probably not be an adventures to update everyone on until Sunday when we will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day!
Saturday we went on another full day USO trip and just so happened to have the same tour guide as our trip to Mainz, luckily she didn't keep me up with her history lessons during our two hour bus trip but I had taken dramamine to help with my motion sickness so I was pretty much passed out for a good portion of the drive. Our first stop was the town of Erbach where we went on a private tour of the count of Erbach's castle. My favorite part was when you first entered the castle the entry way was lined floor to ceiling with the largest atypical antler mounts. It was an impressive collection that put Cabela's display to shame... The first room we walked through was display case after display case of guns. They were amazing, a few had the most ornate carving, inlaid with ivory or pearl. One of the guns was a duck hunting gun that was at least 5 feet long, it took two people to aim and shoot! They had an old "grenade" type launcher that was about a foot and half long and apparently had a recoil/kick back so bad that the shooter usually ended up with broken bones. We then grabbed a pair of slippers and headed up the stairs, slippers were required because the second floor had all of the original flooring and they wanted to preserve the castle as much as possible. The stair case was also lined with more antlers and it led up to a room where the count had mounted all of his trophy bucks dating back about 500 years ago. Our tour guide informed us that deer 500 years ago weighed an average of 500 kilos while deer today average a weight of about 150 kilos. This did help to explain the massive antlers that filled the room. We then headed into another part of the castle that was filled with boring old furniture and pictures (stuff I was clearly not interested in...) After suffering through the boring section we filed back downstairs into the knights armory! There were full knight armor displayed throughout the room, real weapons used during the time period as well as horse armor and chain mail. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed on the tour but I did manage to sneak a couple.... We finished up the tour and headed outside where thankfully it was sunny and warm! After spending a couple of minutes checking out the town we headed to our next stop.
Michelstadt was a small medieval town just a couple of minutes down the road from Erbach. This is where the Easter Egg festival was being held. I have learned that Germans LOVE their festivals and there is never a shortage of things to celebrate! The town was surrounded by what used to be an old moat and even had one of the old watch towers still intact. The festival took place inside of a toy museum and artists from all over came to display and sell their etched, carved or hand painted eggs. It was amazing what these artist could do with a simple egg. Justin and I each picked out an egg to add to our collection of knick knacks from around the world and headed out to test the local cuisine. Our tour guide highly recommended a restaurant/brewery where we sat down and ate a hearty german lunch, complete with locally brewed beer. However lunch did not sit to well with me and we spent the rest of our free time relaxing on a park bench while I tried to keep all of the food down. Luckily I recovered quickly and held down everything for the rest of the trip.
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