Marksburg: The Indomitable Fortress

I only gave it that silly title because of the fact that the Marksburg castle was never conquered! Possibly the only one in Germany to never be conquered!

Looking as un-conquerable as ever

"Key of the castle, key of the castle"

This fortress built in 1117 was pretty cool. Our tour led through the castle, showing us the royal quarters, the family chapel, the cannon tower and the "Hail Mary" tower (in the center of the photo, the tall one). I call it that because it was intentionally used as the last chance for the residents of the castle. If they were being attacked and had the castle walls penetrated, the family and other residents would run into that tiny tower and wait for help to come. But if help didn't come in a few days, well then they sorta climbed down the tower and gave up.

The tour guide was super cool, and even let a few of us help with the exhibition. I got to hold the key for an awesome 20 seconds, but still managed to take 2 photos of me with the key. The guide would use trap doors and other devices to disappear and reappear, which was actually more awesome and less childish than I just described. And also, Cliff got to dress up with a pig helmet and a sword!

Everybody wants a piece of that key.
But Fisher will never get it.

The iPad, making photo taking look more like a tourist dilemma
than an actual process of art

So here are more pictures of us acting like we do best; as goofs.
But this was only part of our trip today!
We also went on a cruise of the Rhein river!

Michael's taking a rest before he has to hold the key.

On the sunniest day we'd had in... forever, we took a cruise on the river! The girls were lounging and tanning and the guys were... just being guys. There also was this bee that almost stung Jordan, and a slide on top of the ship that I took a part in sliding down. As we traveled we saw the Loreley Rock! Apparently it was a really cool rock that I didn't realize until we had passed. But we saw many other castles and fortress (that were conquered in the past), and the Mausturm (mouse tower)!

Not the Mouse Tower

An Amateur Sketch

The Mouse Tower, in all it's glory

The Mouse Tower is outside of Bingen, and the story goes that a miserly Bishop, Hatto II of Mainz, was the only man in the town with any food during a famine in the 10th century. When he jacked up his prices, the beggars became restless   and hungry. They didn't cease begging him for food, so he tricked them into going into a barn where he would hand them food. But instead had the barn doors locked an razed the barn to the ground, peasants and all. As they were passing away in agony, he commented on their screams as those of "squeaking mice". As he planned to go to his castle and sleep, an army of mice besieged his castle until he fled. He fled to the mouse tower in the middle of the river (because mice aren't very good swimmers). Yet as many mice died, even more mice made it to the island and besieged his tower to eat him alive.

The Cosmic Egg, but more commonly
known as a Wolfmother album

Anyway, we visited this town of Bingen, as it was the home of Saint Hildegard, a girl who at a young age in the cloister distinguished herself as a visionary. Although modern science attempts to disregard her mysticism as a symptom of her frequent migraines... Still very interesting, she accomplished many paintings and writings, even invented her own alphabet and language that to this day is still not deciphered.

Also in the same museum, remains and tools of an ancient surgeon were found. Blood-letting, trephanating tools and iron scalpels were found!




All in all, this trip was exceptionally fantastic, had a little bit to do with our major, a lot to do with the gorgeous weather, magic, migraines, theology, tourism and stories about sharing your food. We even saw our bus driver (to and from Berlin, Eddie is his name) outside of the Marksburg.
Plus I got a ton of photos to use as wallpapers for my computer. The Upper Rheinnland really is gorgeous.