Hogwarts in Germany?

June 28, 2018

Leaving the Munich area, we thought about heading straight back to the Vigliottis, but they had some things going on tonight so we decided to take our time.  I had heard about another castle a little farther west, and we decided to take a slightly longer route back in order to check out Hohenzollern Castle.  It was kind of cool also because we were able to skirt the edge of the famous Black Forest region by going that way.  We were quite surprised when we didn’t stumble upon any gingerbread cottages, witches or other fairy tale creatures. 

On the other hand, we were quite impressed with the castle.  It is high up on a hill that rises and although the most recent castle was only built in the 1800’s, it was built on the ruins of much older castles, and was made to resemble the medieval castles it replaced.  Honestly, any Harry Potter fans can’t help but be reminded of Hogwarts as you drive toward the castle. 

We really enjoyed this even more than Neuschwanstein because although there were other people there, it didn’t feel as overcrowded.  The tour of the castle itself was in German, but there were English placards in most of the rooms.  We really had a fun time on the battlements and even going down into the underground tunnels beneath the castle that had been used as bomb shelters and sometimes as a dungeon.  It was on one of the placards down in the tunnels where we learned about the mysterious “white lady” who haunts the castle after mistakenly murdering her own children in the 14^th century. 

After exploring the final castle of our trip, we made our way back to the Vigliottis for a couple more days with them before we hit the road and leave Zac with them for a few weeks.