6000 Hits and a Castle to Boot!

Well, we've passed the 6000 mark!  That many hits and counting...well...Hopefully:-) 

I've mentioned now a number of times that my son was getting married.  Well, the weddings have come and gone and G and C are now married and in their new home here in Pittsburgh.

My wife, a few other family members and I went to the wedding in Germany and got a 10 day tour of southern Germany with our own private, native-speaking tour guide!  As time permits, I'll pull out a couple of interesting shots -- out of the 800 (!) or so we took -- and post them. 

That's G and C under the blue umbrella.

We toured a number of castles while we were there.  This is a picture of first one, "Burg Eltz".  That means: "Eltz Castle" but "Eltz Fortress" is actually a better translation.   It goes back about 1000 years and basically stayed in the Eltz family the whole time.

To me, this place will always be the one that reminded me most of  something our of the movie "The Lord of the Rings".  It is perched -- and I do mean "perched" -- on the tippy-top of a little rocky mound at the bottom of a deep valley  The Valley is so deep, and the road down to the castle is so slippery in the rain, that one of our party -- and I shan't say who -- took a spill even before we got to the castle.

This was probably a very good defensive spot when your enemy used spears and arrows, but since the days of guns and cannons...well...uh...probably not so much.  When that day finally came, however, the ever-resourceful Eltz family just switched to "Schmoozing" whoever was in power to hang on to what they had.  Apparently, that works pretty well, too!

Germany is a great vacation destination!   Admittedly, it is a looooong plane ride, but it is worth the trip.  Trust me!