Tübingen – Bebenhausen

Day 18

Today was pretty exciting, we were going to Lichtenstein Castle! Which is kind of like Neuschwanstein lite. We decided to go to this one because, being smaller and less famous, it would probably have fewer tourists. We were probably right?

First we had to take some buses. The train was out to the first town we had to connect at, so they were running a train-replacement bus. The connecting bus parked in a weird spot so it left without us, but we got another one. It runs down these rather narrow valleys with little towns, and the castle is prominent above the town to stop at. We were walking up, there’s a hiking trail, the beginning of which is a little difficult to find but once you’re on it there aren’t a hundred different routes to choose from. There was an option to go down another trail to see a spring or something, but we decided not to – it would have increased the amount of uphill walking we’d have to do after, and taken more time that we wanted to spend at the castle. So we continued upwards. The trail became extremely narrow, just a ledge on the side of a very steep hill, which was not great for my increasing paranoia about falling off. I don’t have great balance, and I think about earthquakes a lot, especially apparently while I’m on the side of a steep hill.

At the top, the castle is larger than the pictures suggest. The part that everyone photographs is the fairy-tale keep, but there are larger grounds around it surrounded by ‘defensive’ walls. It doesn’t take very long to see, but we got a guided tour of the inside as well which talked about some pretty cool things. In one of the first rooms is a bit of naked stone sticking out of the floor on the side, and that’s the top of the peak it’s been built on. That room also has many coats of arms painted around the walls; the guide joked that it was 19th century facebook. In another room is a mirror with a bullet hole in it, which was made by an allied soldier in the valley shooting at the castle and having his bullet ricochet off the back of the room into the mirror. If that was on purpose it would have been absolutely ridiculous. There was also apparently a room for drinking and boasting, which contains a silly 2m long champagne flute. The dining room was surprisingly tiny, and the residents in the 19th century would have shoved all the furniture into the bay window in order to have a dance. There was also a tiny musician’s gallery, though it was covered with a golden screen. The guide joked that it was the 19th century Alexa. Apparently there has been some sort of building on that spot for centuries, even before the current castle.

We headed down to the parking lot for lunch, where there was a café. I had a bratwurst so I could say that I had, and it came with cold potato salad which was actually not super appetizing. Tharash had a veggie flatbread pizza. The buzzers they gave us to let us know when our food was ready were really loud, and I jumped whenever they went off. There was a topiary shaped like the castle!

Then we walked along the cliff to the ruins of an older, actual castle. There’s not a lot to see, just some crumbling walls and the well – which was filled in to prevent accidents. It did have some amazing views, though, especially of the other castle. On the way back, we saw a monument which talked about the formation of the Jura mountains, and we saw a crow that watched all the tourists and croaked at them.

On the path down the mountain, we eventually passed a German mom who was shepherding two small boys and pushing a stroller. She was on the fairly wide part of the path, but there was still the occasional fallen tree to worry about! Had she gotten the stroller all the way up to the castle, or was she just doing a walk with her family in the lower part of the woods? She seemed very casual about it. Germans are hardcore.

Schloss Lichtenstein
– Aesthetic: 9/10 – Beautiful vanity project, very aesthetic.
– Fortifications: 6/10 – They have all the trimmings and trappings, but it’s like they’re in miniature a bit.
– Historicity: 7/10 – since it’s a fantasy castle, historic accuracy isn’t its main focus. But it’s still old.
– Location: 9/10 – Very majestic from the valley below! Bit of a hike, though you can drive up to the other side.
Total castle rating: 7.5/10

We were back in Tübingen in time to make some goat cheese/honey stuffed pasta (we got it premade from the grocery store, that’s way too fancy to make on a schedule) and then went downtown for an organ concert! It was cash only (derp) but Khem was very kind and paid for all of us. The organ was amazing, it’s a great size for the church, and the program was thrilling, containing music related in some way to Martin Luther. The only drawback was there was some kind of latin dance party happening in the square outside. And I love latin dance, but I do not love it when it’s being played loud enough to drown out the concert that I’m trying to listen to. The fun part was that the organ at full volume was easily able to drown out the outside noises, so that was great. But not all the pieces were super loud, of course, you have to rest your ears.

Then we went to a pub for drinks, I had mint hot chocolate and some ice cream, everyone else had black forest sundaes. …And it was only cash again so Khem had to pay again.

Day 19

We met Khem and Elena at the Tübingen castle, which is now both a university and a museum. Or at least it is now a museum attached to a university that used to be in the same building. I’m not super clear about it. It started out with “as old as it gets” for that region, with a replica cave painting painted on the inside of a window alcove (it worked really well actually), and a room containing 40,000 year old artifacts including a carved mammoth made of mammoth tusk (very meta), some bits of bone that they claimed were part of a bone flute, a carving of a cave lion, and a carving of a horse. They’re very proud of the horse carving, you can get all kinds of merch shaped like the horse. I think I bought a cookie cutter.

Then after showing some ancient pottery preserved in wetlands, there was an ancient Greek section, which was pretty huge. Tons of pottery and many coins. I noticed that just about every painted male figure had his genitals prominently visible, while nearly all the female figures were modestly clothed. A friend later explained to me that the ancient Greeks thought that the male figure was the epitome of human beauty and women were just horribly deformed versions of them. I’m insulted lol, I’m working on losing some weight (down 10 lbs since the summer, though it’s slowed by the holiday sugar people keep giving me) but I’m still damn aesthetically pleasing without any masculinity required. Anyway, there was a coin with Cleopatra on it which was really cool.

Down the stairs from that was the ancient Egypt section, which was also huge. There was jewellery and statuettes and even some textiles, there were several sarcophogi in special climate-controlled rooms (that I felt uncomfortable going into, like it had an ‘off-limits’ vibe) (but there were windows into them from the main room so you could also look from out there), and there was a replica tomb with hieroglyphics all over the walls.

Then there was a “Roman” section, but it was kind of weird. It was just replicas of famous Roman statues. Like, the Dying Gaul? check. Laocoön and His Sons? check. That boobed torso from Trier? Check, and there was even a reconstruction of what the complete thing would look like. I guess it’s useful to people who want to see these sculptures without running all over Italy. Or to Trier. The actual weird part was that the space was doing double duty as an exhibit on……. microbiology?? There were some very strange presentations with video and other media. In the back there was a glass ceilinged room that only held heads of Roman statues. I guess there’s enough of them, but it’s still a bit strange to look at.

After these, we went to a traditional Swabian restaurant, I think the Wurstküche, and it took a while to decide what to have because it all looked so good. I ended up having a floral lemonade and a potato pancake with the most amazing vegetables (I think it had a citrus sauce?) (it’s not on their menu online). I have to say it was better than our own potato pancake XD (it had better be, for that price). Tharash had spätzle with lentils, Khem had an entire trout, and Elena had schnitzel.

We were super full after that, and it was already 4pm, so we went to a cake shop, bought four pieces of cake, and headed back to Khem and Elena’s house to chill. They live just below the castle, pretty convenient! We talked for a few hours over tea, mostly about the videogames we used to play and the memories we made in them, and then we had the cakes and watched TV. We did a couple episodes of Thermae Romae Novae, an anime about a Roman bath architect who magically time-travels to modern Japanese baths whenever he puts his head under the water in a bath, but it wasn’t as quirky as expected (although the main character really has no business being as absolutely ripped as he is for being an architect). So we watched a couple episodes of Way of the Househusband instead.

Tübingen – Donau