Daytrip to Marburg Germany

Today we chose to visit a town that was only one hour away and recommended by a friend. The town had a cute altstadt (old town). Luckily, I asked at the Tourist Information center how to get there. She told us where the elevator up to the altstadt was, this allowed me to miss the 100 or so steps leading up there!! Yeah!



As usual for all towns we visit on Saturdays, there were tons of people out and about. Here is a picture of the Rathaus (town hall). Notice the crowd.


We looked around a little and then decided we needed to eat before things started closing up. We ate lunch at a little cafe but they were so slow. We waited forever for our food to come and then it wasn't that great. Lily liked her kartoffel puffers mit apfelmus (potatoe pancakes with apple sauce), she wants to eat German foods whenever possible.


Next, we headed up to the large Schloss (castle). The castle was first built in 1122 and rebuilt and added on for the next several centuries.

No elevators up to this. It was a steep climb up along a very jagged, cobble stone walk path. The castle was nice and there was a nice view of the surrounding village. We didn't tour the castle because it was only in German but we did the castle museum of cultural history which was in a large portion of the castle. There were several interesting things to look at.

Next we walked down to see the large St. Elizabeth Church. It is the first gothic hall church in Germany built in 1235-1285. It is the site of the tomb of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. It became one of the most important places of pilgrimage in Europe and remained so until the 16th century. Today it is a protestant parish church but as an exceptional sacral monument it is still visited by tens of thousands every year. It was pretty and had some nice art and several St. Elizabeth statues. The choir areas in the front of the church were very interesting. The stained glass was very pretty also.




Next, we drove to the town of Braunfels to see the castle there. We just drove up to the castle to see it and did not visit the old part of town. The castle was closed so we couldn't tour it but it looked really neat from the outside.




On our way home we noticed this flock of sheep grazing in the field along the winding street. We thought it was neat to see the German shepherds too. Lily and I got out of the car to take some pictures. They probably thought I was strange taking pictures of them and their sheep. I said to them "guten tag" (good day) but realize now I should have probably said "guten abend" (good evening)as the sun was going down. Oh well, stupid me!