02.09 - Day 231 - Epernay, FRA to Maisenbach, GER

Monday 2nd September - Epernay, France - Maisenbach, Germany (Day 231)

Clem and Clau have kindly offered to host us from Thursday for a long weekend in Salzburg so we have 4 days and 3 nights to wend our way the 850 kms. 

After a walk out for breakfast baguettes and schoolwork done for the day we checkout of Premiere Classe and head east, stopping only for supermarket supplies, crossing the border into Germany all the while driving past field after field of corn and occasional field of drooping sunflowers. 

For our trip from Norwich to Mynytho we’d dragged the kids through cathedrals, for this trip for a bit more history exposure I’d found some castle ruins hoping being able to scramble around, explore and imagine would appeal more to our 7 and 9 year old audience. 

So it is then after passing through Baden-Baden (so good they named it twice, like Jay Jay Okocha the Bolton Nigerian footballer of the late '90's), we drive up through the hillside forest to Altes Schloss Zu Hohenbaden (old castle) built and expanded upon between 12th and 15th century. 

Despite being a ruin, there are multiple rooms and levels to explore and only a couple of other visitors on the free grounds and ruins. The kids enjoy exploring this oversized playground as we try to guess what each room was used for and just how many levels were in the main hall. 

There are many sweeping viewpoints over the spa town below and along the Black Forest valleys and hills. My only worry is whether other castle ruins will be as good as this. 

From here it’s a windy 1 hour drive through picturesque German villages, houses with steep sloping roofs, baskets of flowers hanging off the wooden balconies extending under the large eaves. 

We arrived at Ausblick Maisenbach, our home for 2 nights, a large room in the roof with views looking over the small village. Seb is particularly enamoured with the large cubby with Brio train pieces to play with and thrilled with the host’s suggestion of dragging the sofa bed mattress into the cubby to sleep on.