Exploring burg Hohenzollern

Magnificent, dreamy and snowy. These are the words that come to mind when I saw the castle, it's such a wonderful building that stands upon a high hill for the whole area to see. It's a pretty statement piece if you think of it.
Anyways, I'm currently on my way back from visiting the castle while I'm writing this so I'm thinking of what my initial reaction was when I saw it but it was kind of like an "OOOO😱".

After parking the car we walked the 20min to the castle through the woods and were met by plus minus a trillion gates and circle walkways, okay, maybe 4. They were really fun to walk and ponder what it was like to build it all! Must've been such a project back in the day...

The castle is fairly new eventhough it looks very medieval. Warning, history lesson with Liz incoming!
Burg Hohenzollern probably already existed in the 11th century and was taken over and destroyed in1423. In 1454 they build it from scratch and then was taken over by some people during the thirty years' war. Some French people claimed it for a little bit and when they left in 1798 the castle was just left to perish. With the start of the 19th century the castle was a ruin, so in 1819 they decided to build it up again. This was the idea of a king Frederick of who's family would come to live within the new walls, funny thing is, they thought it would be fun to name all their sons Frederick so their family tree is pretty repetetive lol. An architect came in and designed the castle how we know it today, which at the time was the idealistic image of a medieval knight's castle.
From 1850 to 1867 they built it up and just 11 years later an earthquake ruined the whole thing all over again. So it took them another 11 years to fix it. How many times this thing was broken down and built up again is astounding! haha.
- end of class -

The castle has a cute little courtyard and that's where we entered the place too. We got a bunch of info about the family that lived there, who all named their sons Frederick by the way, if that's not confusing, lol. We got to see a bunch of rooms, which were all decorated to the core with all different kinds of things. I loved the livingroom, honestly, it's a shame the couches are out of fashion because they are beautiful! I'm really one for detail so I always enjoy to see how castle people also seem to prefer to use a lot of detailing everywhere.

We entered a room of which the guide told us was the library. So here I was, expecting this super cool room with a buttload of dusty books but NO, it was just a corridor kind of room with a couple cupboards, lol. They had some fun paintings in it though! Seriously, if I would have a castle i'd have a library that more than deserved the name. Walls full of books, a remote ladder to be able to reach the books at the top, a couple secret doors leading to more book covered rooms, a cozy corner with some big chairs where you can read in front of a fireplace, but I digress.

When we made our way to the other side of the castle through the rooms, we could really feel that we were moving to the courtyard side instead of the actual outside, because it was alot warmer over there! It's cool to see how - with that kind of stuff - we've come so far in the world nowadays.

When we had seen all the showable rooms and the royal riches (not my thing but kinda interesting anyways) the cold has crept it's way through our shoes and gloves. That's the moment we decided to embrace the cold and walk on this road thingy on the wall around the castle, where the COLD wind was trying it's hardest to freeze us to the bone.
It was SO COLD. My hands and feet were quite literally freezing off lol. But it was so cool to see the view, all the tiny villages covered in snow. Snowy landscapes really have something magical about it, especially when you are looking out from way up, on a castle wall.

We saw some statues of some of the Fredericks and a memorial stone of someone who got crushed by a falling stone in the construction. I really wanted to chill a little longer but I didn't want to end up without my fingers and toes so we walked the journey back and found refuge in the car.

So, whenever you're in the area, definitely go to Hohenzollern because it's such a beautiful place!