Alsace North Part 2 07/07/2015

After vistiting the castle I headed to the Ouvrage Schoenenbourg. In the middle of the journey I found a tank in the side of the road and decided to stop to take a foto. It resulted that it was the Ouvrage du Four à Chaux. As it looked quite nice I decided to get inside.

The entrance was 7 € with a guide in French/German. I was pretty amazed the amount of information I could understand from the French explanations and really happy that I could even understand more from the German one. The guide gave plenty of information of the life-style inside the bunkers, contruction details and he even moved a turret.

Inside the Bunker the temperature was around 13 degrees so all the motorbike equipment was handy. Other tourist had to borrow clothes from the information office. They lend them for free, nice detail. The inside from the tunnel were a bit creppy. Large corridors, lots of doors going to extrange places and the omnipresent rails for the amunition transportation.

The visit took 2 hours and 30 minutes. Quite long mainly because of the explanations that were really detailed and needed to be done two times, one for each language. We entered using one human entrance and leaved using the door for the amunition transportation.

Soldiers entrance

Amunition entrance

After the trip I headed straight to Karlsruhe, I had to get there before 5.45 to do german classes. The trip back to Karlsruhe was also really good, nice curvy roads in good conditions. However it was hot as hell, around 40-42ºC, new experiences while riding my motorbike.

Alsace North Part 1 07/07/2015

Big trip today! I woke up early in the morning prepared some walking clothes, put all the motorcycle equipment on and started my trip to north Alsace. In the morning the temperature was perfect for riding.

The road once I got inside France was amazing, nicely mantained full of turns and a crazy 90 km/h speed limit. Sincerely I don't think lots of those turns can be taken at that speed without killing yourself. I took it easy and drove at my pace. After an hour of riding I got to the the Fleckenstein parking lot. My motorbike is clearly not prepared for riding on dirt which made the last kilometer extremely fun.

Castle walk

Once in the parking lot I put most of the motorbike equipment in the topcase and prepared myself with comfortable clothes. However I still had some weight in the backpack. In the information point the sold me the tickets to get inside the Fleckenstein castle (7€). 

The plan for the day was to visit the Fleckenstein castle however I found there was a hiking trip to visit 3 other castles and decided to give it a try. In a first moment I though to see the 2 closer ones but I really enjoyed the hiking and visited all of them. I didn't have much time because I had german classes at 5.45 pm and I also wanted to visit some WW2 bunkers so the hiking was alternated with small runs. Thays why today,day after the trip, my legs are pretty sore.

Fleckenstein

The first castle to visit was the Fleckenstein. This amazing castle dated back from the XII century. It was probably build by the Hohenstaufen but the Fleckenstein were the ones in charge of it. The castle was constantly improved during the years and it was finaly destroyed in 1680 under Louis XIV reign.

Map of the Fleckenstein castle:

1. Gate Building
2. Guard's residence
3. Gutter for rain water
4. Barbican with moat and drawbridge
5. Today,castle museum
6. Wellhouse and chamber
7. Spiral staircase
8. Lookout cloff with spiral stone stairs
9. Main quartes
10. Two stone steps on the inner side of the cliff
11. Flanking tower

Loewenstein

Loewenstein was the second castle in the walking trip. This castle was totally destroyed and not much of it was left. The views from the Fleckenstein castle were amazing. I forgot to take a photo of the information panel and I'm not able to find information of this castle.

Map of the Loewenstein castle:

1. Moat
2. Corridor through the north cliff
3. Wel or cistern
4. Entrance to the north cliff
5. Staircase
6. Wooden/stone steps to the south cliff
7. Cistern
8. Bridge

Hohenbourg

The Hohenbourg castle was originaly built in the 13th century. In 1482 the castle became property of the Lords von Sickingen. The build new fortifications for the castle. Nevertheless, much of it was destroyed in 1523 ans it was only rebuilt several decades later.

The origna castel was build around the main rock, agains which the large protective wall was erected. The barbican erected by Franz von Sickingen dates back from 1504. In the most recent part of the castle one can see the remmants of a round tower that had a spiral staircase.

This castle was in much better condition than the Loewenstein and large pieces of structure remained there. The stairs were really step but the views from the top were worth going through them.

Map of the Hohenbourg castle:

1. Rock chamber
2. Stone stairs at the upper castle
3. Round defensive tower
4. Renaissance portal
5. Two rock chambers with wells or cisterns
6. Residences
7. Defensive wall
8. Spiral staircase tower
9. Out buildings

Wegelnburg

It's the highest castle from all the previously visited. Wegelnburg was build as a fortification of the German Empire at the end of the 12th century. The castle is names after "B. de Woeglenburc", a vassal of the emperor, whose name appears for the first time in 1247. 

The castle was conquered and destroyed by the citizens of Strasbourg and the emperor's custodian. The castle was restored by the German Empire in 1330 and 1417. In 1680 the french general Montclar burned down and razed Wegelnburg castle.

Map of the Hohenbourg castle:

1. Gate house
2. Former gate tower
3. Well shaft
4. Former defensive wall 
5. Stone steps to the upper castle
6. Large rock chamber of the middle castle
7. Open rock chamber of the upper castle
8. Large rock chamber of the upper castle

Durlach Turmberg 05/07/2015

Today I did a small motorcycle trip to a tower next to Karlsruhe. It was a extremely hot day with temperatures of 43 ºC in the sun. The tower can be reached by using a Tram or by using the super long stairs. I didn't wnat to wait or do any kind of sport with those extreme temperatures so I rode my motorcycle till the top of the mountain

The tower ruins (Turmberg-ruine) formed part of the Hohenberg Burg ( Castle of the tall mountain). The castle was build in 11th century and actually nearly all, if not all, have been destroyed.

The castle was destroyed in 1279 by Bischod Konrad II von Lichtenberg. However the tower stills remained. Even though the walls are quite full of recent concrete, the tower still has the old looks and it provides good views over Karlsruhe and Durlach.

Murgleiter - Etappe 3 16/05/2015

Today I went hiking again. With the hiking group from the first trip we decided to do another trip. At first hour in the morning the sky was a bit cloudy but afterwards the sun came out so we end out having a sunny nice day.

The track was more or less the same length of the first one but much steeper so it was a harder journey. However the weather was nicer this time so we didn't felt that extra effort that much.

We meet at 8.45 at the Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof and we took the S41 tram till Forbach. This town is situated in the lower part of the valley so once there we started heading to the mountain. For some reaseon people were selling cheap cakes in the street.

As the town is small in not to much time we where already in the midle of the forest. As usually, nice green views together with step slopes.

After walking for some hours we reached a dam, the Schwarzenbachtalsperer. It was build in 1926 and has been drained several time during history due to wars. The last drain was done in 1997.

We ate at the base of the damm, a really nice and relaxing place. After this we keep walking, this time down the hill. At the lowest point we found river with some road going close to it. As the road has a lot of curves it's full of motorbikers enjoying the track. 

 As we got lost before getting to destination we did an extra visit to Stuhlberg which was not planned. However the trip only got 1km longer, so not that bad after all. The trip ended in Schönrhünzach, a really small town where we took the tram and went back home.

Berlin 08/05/2015

This weekend I went to Berlin. At 12 a.m we meet in Karlsruhe, took some food from the supermarket and started our trip. The journey from Kalrsruhe to Berlin is quite long, around 740km.
This huge distance, traffic, and the fact that the "Polizei" make us stop for 45 min to check our ID while we where in the autobahn , made the journey last around 11 hours.

Once in Berlín we went to our hostel near Warchauer, eat some kebab and went to a club called Matrix.

Next day we took the S-bahn to Alexanderplatz. As the trains in Germany were doing a strike it took quite a long time as the train frequency was slow. From Alexanderplatz we walked to Brandemburgtur and then to the Holocaust memorial. There we ate some pizza.

After eating we visited the Reichtag, only from the outside as we didn't have any booked tickets, and to finish the day we walked along the eastside gallery.

In the night we decided to go to Tresor, a "berlin style club". The club was situated in a abandoned factory which gave it a weird atmosphere.

On sunday we just slept the whole morning as we had a long journey and the driver needed some rest. The trip back to Karlsruhe was long but without any incidences

Schwarzwald Renchtalsteig Etappe 2 22/04/2015

Today I went hiking in the Scwartzwald. It was not a really sunny day so this made some people back of but we managed to be 8 people. The route we made was:

We meet at 7.45 a.m. in the Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof and took the train to go to Oppenau.Oppenau is in a valley. The train keeps following the lower part of the valley. The rails togetehr with the german houses, created nice views.

In Oppenau we started walked till 1:00 pm when we stopped to eat something. At this point of the journey we had already done more than half of the altitude gain. Some of parts of the trail where quite step but it was worth the effort.

After the short brake we continued walking till Bad Peterstal-Griesbach. There we decided to keep walking till the next extation, 3.5 km away. That station was the last one of the rail.

Regarding the trip, we walked around 20km but I'm not able to the exact distance as I had some issues while recording the track and only some part of the journey got recorded.

Heidelberg 11/04/2015

Today I made a visit to Heilderberg to visit the ruins old the Heildelberg Schloss (castle).

This time I did the journey with my motorbike. It took around an hour of straight autobahn. I was able to park really close to the castle. Just before I parked I found a really curious traffic signal warning for the presence of frogs. I had never seen one of those so it deseverd a photo.

As soon as I started walking I had really nice views from the city. In the picture you can see an overview of the old-city. The big church is called Heiliggeistkirche (church of the Holy Spirit) and the bridge is called Älte Brücke (old bridge).

The entrance in the schloss costs 6€. You can see most of it from the outside but I think it's worth to get inside to take a look.  From the outside the towers are impressive. Some of them are in good condition and others are partly destroyed. Once you get inside it looks like a town-center. 

The original castle dates back from the 12th century. It was later expanded, destroyed and reconstructed several times. That's why we can see different types of buildings. 

Inside the castle there is the main square from which you can see al the buildings. Some of them look pretty well preserved and others are nearly ruins. The style of this buildings looks really different from the ones of the towers.