For our 21st Anniversary, Trek surprised me with a weekend away in a castle. He booked a room in Castle Rheinfels located right on the Rhein River. It's a beautiful castle & I was SO excited to actually get to stay INSIDE a castle for a night.
After arriving, we checked into our room & explored the outside of the castle a little bit.
It overlooked the Rhein River which made everything SO picturesque & beautiful.
We hiked down the mountain into the cute village below the castle & found an adorable little German Restaurant run by a husband & wife (Opa & Oma). They had the absolute BEST Käsespaetzle I've ever eaten in my life. I LOVE Käsespaetzle. This stuff was made of heaven & sprinkles & clouds & everything wonderful. I could have eaten 4 plates of it it was SO good.
We ate the käsespaetzle as an "appetizer" & got meals too which was kind of silly of us because we were pretty much full after the käsespaetzle. But we ate everything anyway & it was delicious. I had schnitzel & kroketten while Trek had pork cutlets & MORE SPAETZLE. Salads came with it too. Oh & don't forget the amazing hand harvested & pressed red grape juice from their vineyard. The whole meal was just incredible.
After eating ourselves sick, we decided to go hiking to work off all that food. The hike to the top of the mountain was about 3 miles straight up. I was huffing & puffing pretty hard by the time we made it to the top, but it was worth it. The views were incredible.
Then we hiked another 3 miles around the top of the mountain & made our way back to "our castle." The sun was going down, we were full & exhausted, & everything was perfect.
Before we went to bed, we explored the castle a little bit & found a sauna, swimming pool, massage room, "gym", & a READING ROOM with recliners & little book lights. Seriously though, a reading room inside a castle? Are you serious? That's like a dream come true for me.
The next morning we had an incredible breakfast in the castle dining hall. There were meats & cheeses from all over Europe, amazing veggies & fruits, juices, yogurts & meusli, eggs, just everything you could dream up. It was SO SO SO good.
And the view was INCREDIBLE.
After eating our delicious breakfast, we made our way to the "ruin" part of the castle where we were scheduled for a tour of the battlements & mines. We had about an hour before our tour so we walked around the castle ruins & the history museum for a while to pass the time.
As always, medieval castles are just amazing. I never get sick of exploring them.
Our tour was really fun too. The tour guide took us where most people don't get to go in the castle. These ruins are HUGE & cover a LOT of ground, most of which is not accessible to the public. The tour let us see it ALL. I especially enjoyed going down into the tunnels & the mines underneath the mountain. They were SO interesting & kind of scary.
The walls were narrow & there was no light so we had to use our phones as flashlights. The ceilings started getting smaller & smaller & pretty soon we were crouched walking completely in squatting positions. It was really fun.
When we exited the mines, we got to see a whole other side of the castle ruins.
Including the dungeons. If people didn't pay the toll to use the Rhein River to ship goods, they got thrown down these trap doors into the 3 dungeons & had to stay there until they could pay up. There was no way out except through that trap door 15 feet above the dungeon. They threw in bread & a bucket of water each day, but that was it.
It was a fun tour & we loved exploring the history of the area. The castle was just gorgeous.
After packing up, we drove back down to the town to get some celebratory ice cream before we headed home.
And we found a GREAT place for it.
I got a fruit cone which had forest fruit, strawberry, & melon gelato with tons of cut up fruits inside a huge waffle cone. It was incredible.
It was a perfect anniversary with this handsome prince of mine.
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