Travels in Hessen

I think spring is offically here in Marburg. The flowers have been blooming, the sun has been shining, and I have no motivation to do my homework. Yep, it's official. Unfortunatley, I still have another two months of schooling while I keep reading about friends who have only two weeks left. *large sigh*

But on the upside, I am seeing some really cool things. My friend Ruth and I go traveling together and a few weeks ago we went to another castle about an hour away from Marburg. I'm a little fuzzy on the history but basically this castle was built a long time ago with the latest addition added sometime in the mid-1800s. We had lunch in the courtyard and were able to see the postman deliver a package. Big deal, you might be thinking, BUT! after he rang the bell, a woman let down a basket on a cord from about the fourth story and then pulled the package up. How quaint. Of course, I wouldn't want to walk down all those stairs either. So, we paid our three Euros and got to tour the castle. The first room was full of armory including chain mail from the Crusades (sw) and a sword about 800 yrs old that a diver pulled from the Lahn River.

The remaining rooms had a lot of pictures of the family, biblical scences, furniture, the typical castle stuff. Of course, there was some royalty in the family, and St. Elizabeth's daughter was in the cloister there. If I haven't explained this before, St. Elizabeth is the patron saint of Marburg who made a big impact on her world, and she follows us around Europe. We have found her in many of the towns we visit and even in Vienna. I think one of the coolest things about the castle is that the family still lives there with their three children. Can you imagine a childhood of living in a castle?