Mespelbrunn Schloss (Castle)

So - we have this same thing in Boblingen where the frogs will  migrate to the woods during mating season - or are they migrating to the ponds to mate?  Either way they cross roads and it becomes an issue.  Boblingen has come up with a series of "corral" fences that lead the frogs to under road crossing areas to avoid the poor little guys getting mushed on the roads.  This area where the sign was doesn't appear to be super well traveled as it leads only to the castle then beyond the castle it becomes a dirt walkng path, so not seeing who would smush them here - but this was in the circle at the end of the road, so perhaps just a warning of "be careful"... in Boblingen the roads get slick at that time of year... you can figure out why - ewh!!


Some history (the only english part on the whole sign) on the area - the church pictured below is a 19th century addition.  It was closed while we were there, so we didn't get to see into it.

Our first good look at the castle and the backside of the statue... I really should look up who this is.

And finally inside the grounds.

 ooh, look a swan.  We only saw the one... that's got to be a lonely life for that single swan.  Maybe his mate died?  How sad!

 LOOK at that date - 1564... I'm always impressed.  It's weird as all of the stone appears to be sandstone... very weak stone for a castle, don't you think?  I guess it's just on the decorative spots though.

Interesting.....

 This was about a 4' door at the bottom of the tower... tiny door... wish I could open them and look in :)

onder if that round hole is a downspout from inside?  We'll never know.  There is a chapel in there, so thinkng it's not a functional window to the chapel... but where does it go?  

Hum... we'll never know!!

Armory room... there is the chapel in the left corner, then following through to the right are other parts of the house we didn't get to see... we went back outside and went into the door with the 1564 date - it has a spiral staircase inside and we went up to the 2nd floor and went through another arms room that was just short of a museum of all sorts of swords, crossbows and antlers.  Butch was in love with the ancient inlay cross bows.  Boys and their toys, right?

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the old hardware.  How old?  who knows, but old enough to make me want to take pictures of it front and back.  

cool water downspout under the portico

A little closer on that door and its hardware...

And with that we had lunch at the little building on the property - Butch had wild boar wurst with sauerkraut and I had a lemon schnitzel with spaetzle.  Tasty!!

It's not too bad of a drive.  All Autobaun all the way up - it's on the way to Frankfurt - about 2 hours from Ramstein, so on the opposite side of Frankfurt from there... so not worthy of combining a trip to there with this little side jaunt.  BUT the drive was easy and it was a very cute small castle.  Now to research it and see a bit more of the actual history of the place.  Talk about the uninformed, eh?  

https://www.gettingstamped.com/mespelbrunn-castle-germany-water-castle/