Top 10 Romantic Castles - Trendelburg - Rapunzel's Castle

Well, it's almost Valentine's Day - so Days of Yore Travel would like to present you with the Top 10 Romantic Castles you can stay in. Here's our Second Choice:

No. 2 Rapunzel’s Castle – Trendelburg

Trendelburg - The Real Rapunzel Castle

The Trendelburg Castle was built in 1300, near the city of Kassel. Purportedly this is the real McCoy – the original true Rapunzel Castle right out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

In reality, it was built by Conrad III von Schöneberg, to secure the road between Kassel and Bremen. Like Sababurg, it’s located on the Fairy Tale Road, on the other side of Reinhard’s Forest.

The impressive 125 foot high “Rapunzel” tower was added after the castle burned down in 1456. The Grimm Brothers added Rapunzel (the German word for lamb’s lettuce) to their collection of fairy tales, after a woman from this area told them the handed-down medieval tale of Sleeping Beauty in 1810. The forest surrounding (Reinhardswald) is full of so many old trees, you will believe it’s haunted.

Unlike in the fairy tale, the castle played a strategic role in the Thirty Years’ War, and was destroyed by General Tilly’s Croatian soldiers. It wasn’t until 1996 that it was finally purchased by an investment company and finally restored, making it one of the most romantic castle hotels in Europe.

Romantic Castle Chambers

The rooms all have “castle chamber” décor, especially for romantic couples in mind. The hotel gives special attention to details like rose petals in the bath, and bedding arranged with a romantic flair. Naturally, four-posted canopy beds at the crowning touch to this romantic castle hotel. 

This hotel is perfect for people who want the fairy tale experience with romance, comfort and luxury. Here’s a sample of one of the specials they have at Rapunzel’s castle:

• 2 overnights in one of the fairy tale rooms
• Royal castle lord‘s breakfast
• They welcome you with the heavenly smell and taste home-baked muffins
• Fluffy bath-robe and comfortable slippers
• Aroma bath in your fairy bath in your chambers
• A fairy tale heavenly relaxing massage (25 minutes)
• 3-course dinner with an "enchanted" main entry
• 5-course dinner in "magical" candle-light for romantics
• An enchanting day in the land of fairy tales is awaiting for your discover
• You can arrive as of 12:00 pm (upon request)
• You can take a late check-out up until 4:00 pm (upon request)
• Free parking in front of the castle

Dine like Kings & Queens

Couple price for a double room including bathtub -
Starting at 496 €    

 Extras (per couple) :   

• Four-posted canopy bed or residence in the tower    € 40,00
• Honeymoon Suite       € 80,00
• Residence in the Royal Suite    € 120,00

Spoil yourself like a real Princess or Prince

And for super-romantics, they have more extras:

• A temperate sauna (150°F) for cold winter days – 30 €/hr/couple – private use: 75 €/hr/couple.
• Pamper yourself in their “Princess Mouse Skin” Salt Room (24 € /hr /couple)
• Relaxing massages starting at 35 € / person, or hot stone massages 75 € / person.

Castle servents awaiting your commands, See Rapunzel let down her hair, or haunted Reinhart's Forest

Naturally, no romantic trip to this castle would be complete without a castle event, such as fairy tale reenactments, feast for the knights, or a trip to the haunted Reinhart's forest or the nearby Tierpark, which has many of the legendary animals right out of fairy tales.

Sound irresistibly romantic? To find out more, send an email to Days of Yore Travel,
or the Trendelburg Hotel at: info@burg-hotel-trendelburg.com

Address:
Burg Hotel Trendelburg
Steinweg 1
34388 Trendelburg
Germany
Telefon +49 (0)56 75 - 90 90
Telefax +49 (0)56 75 -93 62
Website: http://www.burg-hotel-trendelburg.com/en/

Don't Miss These Other Romantic Castles:

No. 1 - Sababurg - Sleeping Beauty's Castle

 

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Top 10 Romantic Castles - Sababurg - The Real Sleeping Beauty Castle

Well, it's almost Valentine's Day - so Days of Yore Travel would like to present you with the Top 10 Romantic Castles you can stay in. Here's our first choice: 

No. 1 - Sleeping Beauty’s Castle – Sababurg

The Real Sleeping Beauty Castle - Right Out of the Fairytale

The Sababurg Castle was built in 1334, near the town of Hofgeismar. Purportedly this is the real McCoy – the original true Sleeping Beauty Castle right out of Grimm’s Fairytales.

Truly, there is something magical about this castle, because it was originally dedicated to “Christian spiritual love”; namely – built to protect pilgrims travelling to the nearby pilgrimage site of Gottsbüren.

The Grimm Brothers added Sleeping Beauty to their collection of fairytales, after a woman from this area told them the handed-down medieval tale of Sleeping Beauty in 1810. The forest surrounding (Reinhardswald) is full of so many old trees, you will believe it’s haunted.

Just like in the fairytale, the castle eventually became ruins, full of overgrown roses, but in the 20th century, the Koseck Family “kissed it awake”, restoring it to perhaps the most romantic castle hotel in Europe.

Reinhard's Forest, Rose Garden, and native wild horses in the Tierpark

All of the rooms have names, like the “Unicorn Room” or the “Fox Room”. Designed especially for romantic couples, the rooms are furnished in traditional old-world country/castle décor. The tower rooms have four-posted beds – just like you’d expect in a fairytale.

Tower rooms in the castle, with welcome dish of treats

This hotel stresses romance, comfort and luxury, but at affordable prices.
The Sleeping Beauty Romantic Weekend Special includes:

• A special gift book and plate of fruit and treats, waiting for your arrival in your room
• Two overnights, and an elaborate royal breakfast buffet
• A rose cocktail, served in a crystal rose petal glass on your first evening
• A gourmet 3-course and a 4-course evening meal with a special menu
• Admission tickets for the castle (without a tour guide)
• Admission tickets for “Tierpark Sababurg”, Europe’s oldest zoo – built in 1571 (without a tour guide)
• Hiking through the nearby forest, the “Sababurg’s Wild Forest”, Germany’s first national forest – from 1907 (without a tour guide)
• A small goodbye rose souvenir to remember your stay at Sababurg Castle

Pamper your beloved with a Sleeping Beauty 3 or 4 course gourmet meal

• Special Package Price for a couple staying in the Castle Bower (Kemenate): 550 €
• Special Package Price for a couple staying in the Castle Tower (Turm-Gemach): 750 €
  (This includes a room with a four-posted canopy bed and a whirlpool-tub)

You can save 15% if you stay in the castle hotel from Sunday through Thursday.

And for super-romantics, they have extras:

• An extra day of Sleeping Beauty Luxury for 220 € in the tower room with the canopy bed, gourmet menu and whirlpool-tub
• A bouquet of flowers waiting in the room, or delivered at the breakfast table starting
• at 30 €
• A private audience with Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming for 95 €
• A portable fireplace for your castle chamber (bio-ethanol) for 50 €

Sound irresistibly romantic? To find out more, send an email to Days of Yore Travel,
or the Koseck Family at: dornroeschenschloss@sababurg.de

Address:
Dornroeschenschloss Sababurg
Koseck Family
Im Reinhardswald
34369 Hofgeismar (Sababurg)
Germany
Tel: +49 5671 808 0
Fax: +49 5671 808 200
Website: http://www.sababurg.de

Don't Miss These Other Romantic Castles: 

 No. 2 - Trendelburg - Rapunzel's Castle

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Learning to Make a Real Celtic or Medieval Bow

Learning to choose exactly the right kind of
wood for a bow at Ronneburg Bogenbau

 Anybody can buy or mail-order a sword from an online replica shop. They're nice, but somehow all the same. But, if you want to go back in time, and get the "real" Celtic/Medieval feeling about making one of the most deadly and precise weapons of all time, there is nothing better than learning how make an original bow from an Expert.

Meet Nico Veggiato - a Bowyer (Bow Maker) & Fletcher (Arrow Maker), who preserves the age-old traditions. 

Whether you want to make a European prehistoric hunting bow, a Celtic warrior bow, or a medieval army bow, Nico and his team of experts can teach you - not only how to cut, plane and sand a single piece of wood into an authenic period bow - but also show you how to make authentic arrow tips, how to notch arrows, and how to attach cut and attach feathers to them.

Nico's seminars take place in authentic surroundings - in the medieval castle of Ronneburg (built in 1231), just outside of Frankfurt am Main. 

In just two days, you'll learn:

• How to select the perfect wood
• How to shape a bow
• How to braid a bowstring
• How an arrow shaft is constructed
• How to fletch (attach feathers to an arrow)
• How to make arrow heads and attach them
• How to shoot your new bow

If you would like more information about participating in bow-making seminars, write to us at Days of Yore Travel, or visit the Ronneburg Bogenbau website.

Here's where you get the real medieval experience in experimental archaeology - making the same kind of bow that once defended the castle walls you make your bow in.

This is where you can find their tentative calendar for Bowyer seminars.

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Mespelbrunn - Home to Snow White?

Married in love and to God true, 

Brings happiness and blessings without rue, 

With hard work and care of God’s own, 

We have made this good house our home.

This is what is carved in stone over the doorway of this beautiful castle in the Spessart. It was a reward to Sir Hamann Echter from the Archbishop of Mainz for his faithful services as Master Woodsman.

Wait.. wasn’t it a Woodsman who was supposed to kill Snow White, but couldn’t bring himself to do it? Hmmm…. The legend of Snow White originated from this place in the Spessart, not 5 miles from this very castle. I’m sure the Grimm Brothers were inside it, too.

Doesn’t look like the place that Prince Charming would “live happily ever after” with Snow White? The castle is real. Sir Hamann Echter was real. He raised ten children in this house.
Now, who wants to come look inside? Days of Yore Travel - We Take You There.

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Live a Day in the Tannenburg Living Castle

Don’t you wish you could travel back into time and experience what life in a castle was really like? Now you can! Your tour group can spend the day (exclusively) at Tannenburg Castle and turn back the pages of time. Whether you enjoy a sumptuous meal fit for a King or learn about work in a 14th century castle, there is something of fascinating interest for everyone. Tannenburg Castle is different from other castles you might visit in Europe, because it’s a “Living Castle”. Once you pass the castle gates, you’ll be transported direct in the Middle Ages. You’ll be mustered by gate guards, see knights practice fencing, and watch peasants and craftsmen go about their daily work. Later in the Great Hall, you be served by servants and entertained by troubadours. This isn't a do-not-touch tour down roped-off aisles, but a hands-on experience inside a real living castle, exclusively for the tour group. Here you can take a meal just like in the 14th century, stand ring-side at a sword fight, feel the heat of the metal being hammered by the blacksmith, or even get your hands dirty plastering half-timbered walls. All part of Days of Yore Travel.

More fanstastic photos on the Tannenburg Castle Website

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The Mysterious Regenstein Castle

Some places just radiate an almost tangible mystery about them. The ruins of the Regenstein Castle are like that. The castle was once home of the Blankenburg Dynasty, but was lost in a feud in the High Middle Age. But today you can still see the impressive ghostly ruins which show how stately this place must have been. 

Regenstein Castle was made of Days of Yore Explorers. This place was not only the residence of a noble dynasty, but also a place to explore folklore and ghost tales, as well as an anceint sacred site of Neolithic peoples. If you would like to find out more about Regenstein Castle, please write us at Days of Yore Travel.

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What Does a Real Medieval Castle Look Like?

Wartburg Castle from the west side

Many people get a picture of grey stone walls, round rook towers, a draw-bridge and moat in their mind’s eye. Closer to the truth is that most medieval castles are a hodge-podge of different architectural styles and periods, accumulated from each generation adding their own designs onto the castle. Real medieval castles are often a recording of time and technology, revealing the changes and advances in the military castle strategy, which evolved from primitive round towers with simple walls into complex keeps with several lines of defense.

The Wartburg Castle, known as the “most German of all castles”, is a typical example of the evolution of the medieval castle. Founded in the High Middle Age, it has survived more than a millennium and reflects all the architectural styles of the centuries of generations who called in home. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Culture Sight this true medieval castle waiting to be discovered by you.

But Days of Yore Travel doesn’t just want to show you this castle. We want to help you re-live the medieval experience. Come with us and re-live the original Sängerkrieg, the minstrel duel between the legendary medieval poets Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach – two courtly minstrels who brought chivalry and courtly manners into castles, preserved through Wagner’s Opera Tannhäuser. If you would like to relive the 13th century duel of who the better courtly minstrel was, please write to us about travelling back into the Days of Yore.

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Porta Nigra - The Black Gate

Porta Nigra - The Black Gate at night

It's hard to imagine long ago there once was a large and impressive Roman city in Germany, but that's what Trier or Augustus Trevori was - Emperor Augustus' city in the land of the Celtic clan of the Trevori. This ancient metropole on the Mosel river has an entire program of interactive re-discovery about this magnificent gate along with the other Roman sites to see. It received its name from the locals, because the grey sandstone oxidizes and turns naturally black - hence the name Porta Nigra or the 'Black Gate'

If you are looking for an authentic 'Roman Holiday' - not just seeing this magnificent monument of Roman architecture, but an in-depth experience with living history, please write to us for more information about Days of Yore Travel. 

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How cool would it be to see inside a real Roman fort?

This is the main entry gate to the Saalburg Roman fortress.

This is the main gate of a real ancient Roman fort on the ancient frontier of Germania, from back in the days where only a picket wall separated the Germanic barbarians from Roman civilization; a fort just like you would expect to see in the film “Gladiator”. Except this is no Hollywood backdrop. It’s the real thing and a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, just a few miles outside the City of Frankfurt.

How would you like to see how real Romans lived? Maybe learn how to swing a gladius sword? Or throw a pilum spear? Or how about dining in Roman style? With Days of Yore Travel we can take you back in time to experience what life was like living on the Roman frontier. If you would like to experience the true Roman feeling, send us an email for more information. 

Photo courtesy of Carsten Gurk © 2009. All rights reserved. Used by permission.     

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