The Windeck Ruins

Long before we moved to Weinheim the kids wanted to see and visit castles. Once we found our place with castle views right outside their bedroom windows it was a MUST that we get to them as soon as possible. There are two castles to the East right outside our windows, The Windeck Castle Ruins and Wachenburg Castle.  So, on our 2nd day after quarantine that was the plan.  We were hiking up to the ruins. 

The kids loaded up their backpacks, Evie surprisingly enough put some Goldfish, Capri Suns, and fruit snacks in hers while William put about 10 pairs of socks, his jump rope, etch-a-sketch, 1/2 of his wooden tool toys, 1 blanket, markers, crayons and I’m thinking that was it. Needless to say he didn’t carry that for very long and I had to hold my tongue - the guidelines for packing for hikes has yet TBD so we just went with the flow as we weren’t even sure we’d get through town to the hillside. 

Once you are about 3/4 of the way up there’s a few statues of der Grüffelo and die Maus who are characters in a popular children's book that takes place in this forest.  I haven't seen the book yet but all of the local children know it apparently.  The book tells the children that it's okay to be afraid of something and that even a mouse can overcome it.  These were gifted to the city from the publishing house.  This is a YouTube  clip I found, just a snippet of something longer I suppose.

We get to the base of the ruins and Evie is just in AWE! 

Evies “in AWE” look at the castle 😊

We walked to the center of the ruins where they have an outdoor restaurant set up but we couldn’t go up the winding stairs to the upper level. It is all the kids wanted to do - climb those stairs so we will go back when the restaurant is closed so we can explore a little more. 

Such an amazing view of Weinheim! 

Snack break on the way back down.

Walking through the streets, admiring the houses!

She was fascinated by the little moat that surrounded these houses. 

No doubt it was an ice cream kind of day!

The kids did great for their first castle trek. When I mapped it from the house it said 35 minutes walking time to the ruins and I’d say it probably took us close to an hour.  It was steep and I did have to carry my almost 40 pound baby for a bit up the hill.  We took the “steps” path back down to the Alt Stadt that were tricky but we made it and celebrated with ice cream. I wish I had recorded William sitting on those steps enjoying his eis- he must’ve said 10 times how good it was - he loves his sweets! 

It was early afternoon when we got back home but that was fine, everyone was pooped after our long walk and I needed to run out to the store (Edeka) this time to get some things as all stores were closed the next two days.  Stores are always closed on Sundays we have to remember, and Monday is a Holiday which means all stores are closed as well. We remember from before how nice that is to have a family day on Sunday while living abroad but we also remember how nice it is when we are stateside that establishments are open on Sunday if we need something 😊.   

We did just that on Sunday, had a lovely day at home relaxing and enjoying the beautiful sunshine our terrace. We took a little walk, spotted some ducks in the nearby river and enjoyed our neighbor give his normal “Saturday night” concert on Sunday at 6pm because he was gone the previous night. 

Monday we will venture over to a friends for a BBQ and enjoying the company and more beauty weather!

Bis nächstes mal, Tschüss!