Bergenstrasse

Last week Saturday night, after returning from Mainz and the Rheingau, we turned our clocks ahead for daylight savings time and went to bed early. Sunday we got up for church (early the 2nd Sunday of each month), got ready and walked to church - only to discover that the door was locked. The streets were strangely quiet. We walked around the block (the members of our church are not early) thinking perhaps with the time change they were just particularly late. No - still locked. So, wondering if we had missed something, we went home and had a "home church service", had a bite to eat and headed out for our day's adventures. Our plan was to drive on the autobahn to Heilbron and then take the Bergenstrasse (castle road) from Heilbron to Eberbach, then more castles (although ones we had already visited) from Eberbach home. Jeff had one place in particular he wanted to stop and visit but, other than that, we planned to stop wherever something looked interesting.

Our first stop was the Klosterladen St. Peter.

Then just a short ways up the road we stopped at Bad Wimbfen. What a lovely surprise - an absolutely beautiful little town with lots to see!

The Stadtkirche.

And the Blauer Turm, which we climbed, buying our tickets from the family that lived at the top - yes, really - they live up there.

The views from the top were beautiful - the Neckar, the quaint towns...

The Hohenstaufentor.

Next we drove to Burg Guttenberg - a very cool castle that now houses a museum and birds of prey - many of which participate in a bird show. We bought our tickets for the bird show which started at 3PM and saw that we had about 20 minutes to look at the birds and poke around the castle before the show started.

The kids were impatient so we thought this might would straighten them out...

Joseph wanted this sign for his room.

Time for the bird show... where is everyone?

Yes, it took us this long to figure out that we don't go to daylight savings time until next weekend! Duh! We had another hour to explore the castle and look at the birds before the show! When the show finally started we had so much fun! All was in German, of course. But we understood most of it! It took place right on the side of the mountain and the birds flew out into the valley and over our heads.

I took this picture and lived to post it here!

Our last stop for the day was in Zwingenberg. Jeff had driven past this castle several times when traveling for work and always wanted to stop.

We hiked up to this castle, catching some wonderful views of the Neckar along the way, to find out that it is privately owned. Yes, really - someone lives here. Wow!

A fun day! We know what time it is. People can get to school and work at the right time tomorrow. All is well!