That Time We Napped in a Castle. All Day.

 Friday - March 18, 2022

We wake up super early our first night in a medieval castle since we were still jetlagged and counted the minutes until we could head down for breakfast.  I have great hopes for breakfast at a fancy castle hotel!  Unlike dinner, which is held in one of the multitude of dining rooms within the main castle itself, breakfast is held at the bistro, directly across the courtyard.

looking across the courtyard at the bistro from the main building of the hotel.  The building on the left houses the castle's museum.

closer to breakfast!

looking back towards the main building from the bistro

We arrive at the bistro, give our names and room number, and are lead to our booth.  We arrive pretty early, so it's still pretty empty.  As we continue to eat, the room does fill up.  My mom was not a big fan of this booth - she's a boothist - but I thought it was charming!

Not that I thought anyone wanted to steal our things, but I had them head downstairs to grab food while I sat here.  Really, I wanted to slurp some coffee and take some photos 😁

our cute little booth!  Also, do you see the white glove?  They want you to wear a glove when getting food so your hand and your cooties don't end up on the serving implements.  Genius! 

the other tables in the dining room we were in.  This is the view we had as we looked to my left from our booth.  As far as I remember, there were 3 rooms we could have been seated in for breakfast.

the breakfast spread

There were various meats inside those pots.  I'm pretty sure at least 2 of those had sausages - they had the skinny sausages that are from Nuremberg, and some chubby sausages too 😂.   The little glass jars held eggs over easy in a slightly spicy tomato sauce.  I'm pretty sure we got multiples of those.

cake for breakfast!  Genius!  We have danishes, which are like...flat cakes?  But the Germans unabashedly eat cake for breakfast.  How can you not love this country?

The food was so good!  We stuffed ourselves silly with all the foods, then decided that we should walk off the eight thousand million calories we just ingested by taking a walk around the castle grounds.  We all wanted to go laze around a bit after breakfast since we were still jet lagged and tired, but we also wanted a chance to explore the extensive gardens on castle ground.  We even got a special key just for the garden gate when we checked in.

the view of the Rhine from the courtyard area of the castle - just outside the restaurant

We wandered around and actually got some exterior shots of the castle for the first time.  We didn't even manage to get a good look ourselves the day before because we were so relieved to have survived my bad driving and the scary roads 😂.

looking towards the town of Oberwesel, which the castle overlooks.

you can see the Pfalzgrafenstein Castle in the middle of the Rhine!

the red part is what stands out the most when you're looking at the castle from the Rhine  This is along the path that goes up towards reception.

the super steep path leading from the parking area up to reception.  My butt was sore!

hi mom and dad!

view of the castle from across the bridge.  We parked before the bridge and walked across it.  It's just wide enough for a car and there's another parking area just to the left after crossing the bridge

We spent about an hour scampering around the grounds taking photos and enjoying the views.  Once we were tired, we headed back up to our room - which was another 2 flights up from the main entrance.  The castle does boast an elevator, but it's not at our section of the hotel.  They do make the location of each room as clear as possible on their website so you know if you can reach a particular room if you're accessibility challenged.

After we reached out room, I watched food shows on the TV in my room and napped half the day away while my parents also napped and watched the big TV in their room.

I loved having my own spaced - it was so cozy, even during the daytime with sunlight streaming in

I had all these grand plans for exploring their garden that Friday.  Yeah...that didn't happen.  I literally slept the day away.  I lazed in bed, drank the bottled juices they gave us, snacked, and read and napped.  I even skipped lunch.  They had an afternoon tea in the bistro I had thought to check out, but I opted to keep sleeping instead.  While it was a pity we didn't take advantage of our residency to explore the grounds further, we really needed the rest and I think it ended up being a good call since we were beginning the guided portion of our tour the next day in Mainz.  

Dinner was at 6 I think.  We got out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs to ring the bell so they could seat us for the night.  We were taken to a much smaller and more intimate room and given a booth that night.  While my mom may not love booths, this was was very spacious for the three of us.  There were a few other diners in that room - but about 10 feet from us was a table of 8 or 10 - from the sounds of it, American military - likely officers and their wives.  I heard someone talk about law school, and someone say doctor-ish things - so doctors and lawyers for the Army?  🤷  It sounded like they were taking an overnight trip the wives planned - the ladies were quite loud, and once they vacated to the bar for drinks and the gentlemen were left behind the volume returned to a much more hushed and unAmerican level.  My our people are loud!  I wasn't even trying to listen in on their conversation - they really were that loud 😂.  It was a good reminder though that I should talk at my normal loud as hell volume.  As my brother says, my voice booms like a canon.  😅

the table the loud American couples sat at - I took photos before they came in

European portions are SMALL!  Even my mom thought so, and she is a teeny tiny eater!  However, the food - the presentation, texture, and flavors - were excellent and I enjoyed both dinners we had at Schoenburg.  I can see why they're Michelin rated and a place the locals go for special occasions.

After our dinner, we went back to our room to pack up since we were checking out of the hotel and heading to Mainz the next day.  I had a castle or two I wanted to check along the way to Mainz and hoped to see some cool sights as we drive along the Rhine back to civilization.