Pictures on a Bus Tour:

This past weekend, Matt and I took the plunge--and went on our first bus tour ever, operating officially and conspicuously as foreign tourists. Actually, it was pretty fun! We went to the Abbey of Maulbronn, Reichsburg Trifels castle, and the Pfalz Region--all places I would not have been able to get to on my own very easily. Of course, I took a few notes and about a thousand pictures along the way. I tried to include most of the highlights below. Enjoy!

Kloster Maulbronn:

Founded in 1147, "Maulbronn," which means "Mule fountain" has a pretty awesome legend that explains the name. As the monks were searching for a place to build the monastery, they loaded a mule with supplies, blessed it, and whipped it--the mule ran off ahead looking for a location. It supposedly came to what is now Maulbronn, kicked a clod of dirt, and a spring of water began flowing from the ground--the perfect place! That's how it all started. And since then, in 1993, the Abbey at Maulbronn made the World Heritage list, described as, "the most complete survival of a Cistercian monastic establishment in Europe, in particular because of the survival of its extensive water-management system of reservoirs and channels". How awesome.

Reichsburg Trifels:

Trifels is rather isolated in very beautiful, dense forest; it is a nice, steep, switch-backs hike to the castle, which was a welcomed break from the sleep-inducing tour bus. As you can see, the weather was not great--lots of fog and some light rain--and prevented us from seeing very much at all from the top of the castle. On a clear day, though, the view is supposed to be quite great and you can supposedly see all the way to Heidelberg (this is pretty far). This castle is somewhat less impressive to me than the Heidelberg castle, though its history of decay, rebuilding and expansion is interesting. Trifels was first documented in the 11th century and is well-known as the place where Richard I of England was imprisoned after he was captured by Duke Leopold V of Austria; there is another pretty great legend here, which says Richard I was liberated by Troubadour poets--in fact he was released in exchange for a very large sum of money. Also, Trifels was expanded quite a bit during the Nazi era, so it doesn't much resemble the original Medieval structure--this sort of subtracted from my ability to believe in it as an extremely historic site because what we saw of it on the tour really does look pretty new.





St. Martin, the Pfalz:

The most significant German wine region made for interesting if, in my case, clumsy-palated comparison to California wine country; the Pfalz region cares much less about red and grows primarily white wine grapes with the special emphasis, of course, on Riesling.