A Wonder of my World!

Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle, even though not listed in the "Wonders of the World" I am not sure why, but as far as I am concerned, it might as well be.

Last Saturday, we left the Chateau at 8:15 a.m. for what turned out to be rather long day and very tiring, but worth every minute of the trip. My study abroad experience continues to open my eyes to things and places I never ever thought I would see in my life time.  Now, like they say "to go is to see," and to literally to translate those word to the present,  I would never have imagined a more interesting site to see.  This castle first built in the 12th Century for simple pleasure and weekend hung-outs for the then emperor of Germany or the Lord of France (I can't remember who they told us it was), it beats all sense.  My question is how did they, I mean the architects break the rock on top of the mountain to form the basic foundation for the castle?  Ok, after they melted the rock and flattened it to make a foundation, how did they take the rocks and bricks to build the castle on the tip of the mountain?  According to the narrator, who was very excited to give us the history of the castle, there was no water available atop the mountain, and a well, the only well and only source of water supply then was drilled at the entrance of the castle", the well it is still there, since we were in awe, we did not ask whether it still has water or not. How many feet they had to drill to get to the source of the water beats me!

As we started our journey inside the castle, I was thinking, the rooms must be very small and maybe could only fit a few people at a time, to my surprise, the rooms were quite sizable, bedrooms, kitchen, ballrooms and even toilets that were then outside the exterior walls of the castle, which I imagined, were well decorated, but even though they had beautiful cloakrooms, the pit latrines were an open ended bottom that took in the lords' and princess' human waste, to the outside of the castle walls, the toilets were not the type of flash toilets we have today, but the waste was to be washed by rain water, enough information, just imagine the rest!

Anyway, all in all the castle is a master piece and for it to have withstood brutal attacks from war to war, and even though it was restored to almost its original state in 1908 and stands as such to this day, I must commend the builders of then and the young architect who restored the castle for a whole 8 years, to almost its original state.  Long live the dream world of "natural" architects!! - Caroline