Tuesday 13 October 2015

A Saturday in October, Part I

Saturday last week was a day that couldn't have been more beautiful - "Golden October" at its best. We went for a walk on Rechberg, which is one of a group of three hills east of Stuttgart called "Kaiserberge", meaning "Emperors' Mounts".
The prefix "Rech" has nothing to do with retching - it is rather a mis-spelled version of "Reh", which means doe. Many centuries ago, when most of the area was woodland, there must have been an abundance of deer living there, inducing the people to name the hill after them.

Today, the ruins of a castle are on one shoulder of the hill, while a small church sits right on its top. I will show you the church in my next post, but here are some pictures of our visit to the castle.

Zoomed in view from where we left the car at the bottom of the hill: 



The curved wall you see to the left is where a café is situated at the entrance to the castle. We had coffee and cake there in the sun:


Inside the castle (or, what's left of it) we had several options where to go first. We chose downstairs to where storage rooms and prison cells once were.




 Back up the stairs, and a walk along the walls:



Inside one of the buildings was this room where receptions are held and weddings can take place:


The gateway on the picture below leads back out of the castle. A last look back before we were going to walk up the rest of the way to the top of the hill and the church.


A bit of history: Building here was started around the year 1200, although the area had settlements long before that time. The surrounding area was subject to much warfare, plundering and bloodshed, but the castle itself was never attacked. Twice in its long history (in 1648 and 1796) it was briefly occupied by French troops. In 1865, lightning struck the castle and caused large partsto burn down. It lay in ruins after that, still belonging to the same family, the Counts of Rechberg, until in 1986 a man from nearby Göppingen, Hans Bader, bought it from them. 

Mr. Bader was a rich leather manufacturer with a keen interest in historical buildings. He wanted to make sure the ruins were being restored where possible and kept accessible to the public. Although he died in 2006, the place is still run by the Hans Bader Foundation. Admission is 2 Euros for adults and 1 Euro for children - really not much, especially considering how much there is to see and explore.

11 comments:

  1. What a lovely place! It always makes me smile to hear about private people wanting to preserve historic places for everyone.

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    1. It is a lovely place, and although it was certainly popular on a beautiful Saturday like this, it was by no means overcrowded.

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  2. Golden October days are the best for hiking! But I am very surprised that I never heard of this place since my husband and I went hiking all the time, whenever we could, especially a place called Sonnenfels near Reutlingen and from Kircheim up to Teck. I wonder if no one walked there much before the restoration. But that seems unlikely. Walking was so popular when we lived in Dachswald.

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    1. The three Kaiserberge are Rechberg, Hohenstaufen and Stuifen. Göppingen is the nearest city, and it lays east of Stuttgart more or less as far as Reutlingen lays south of Stuttgart. For hikes, it maybe would not have been your direction if you went to Sonnenfels. On the other hand, Kirchheim is more than half way between Reutlingen and Göppingen, and Dachswald is west of Stuttgart, about 40 km north of Reutlingen.

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    2. Hohenstaufen sounds familiar. I am sure we were there. We went places because friends recommended them....Our Dachswald is sort of a suburb of Vaihingen. I had German conversation with an old man who had grown up in Reutlingen. That's how we ended up hiking there.

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  3. Wow, that looks like such a great day. I can't imagine living in a castle a long time ago, can you?

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    1. Oh dear, no, I would have frozen to death inside those thick stone walls! I love my mod cons and would miss my hot shower sorely... Not if I had always lived like that, of course :-)

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  4. What wonderful views. Autumn at its best! :) And I love that weathervane in the last picture... (makes me think "Hogwarts"...)

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    1. Exactly my thoughts, Monica! I am not surprised you noticed that :-)

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  5. I find it amazing that the castle was never attacked. I admire any private individual or trust that takes on such a huge commitment to keep our past available for our future.

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    1. Yes, that is a truly remarkable fact about this castle - a rarity!
      From what I found out about the man who bought the castle, he died only a few years later and never saw it restored as well as it is now.

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