Actually day one and two were two days collapsed into one. We left Thursday morning, flew about 10 hours and arrived in Frankfurt on Friday morning.

There was some drama getting out of Indianapolis. Seems American Airlines had broken down planes or pilots that didn’t want to fly to Dallas where we were to meet up with Becky’s sister Deanne for the flight to Frankfurt. Eventually we were switched to Delta and a flight to Detroit then on to Frankfurt. We got there, but our luggage didn’t.

Jennie met us at Frankfort airport and helped us through the luggage issues. Amazingly Deannes AA flight from Dallas arrived at the same time our rearranged flight from Detroit! Our luggage was delivered the next morning at Jennie’s house in Niedermohr so it all worked out fine.
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A satellite photo ‘snip’ of Niedermohr and surrounding lands. Absolutely ‘Shire-hobbitish’. Undoubtably some Longbottom Leaf, the finest pipe-weed in the South Farthing, growing in some of those fields…

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Our wonderful temporary home-away-from-home and the rental minivan we traveled in. Photos start here, nothing of our travels to Frankfurt or from there to Niedermohr-too jet lagged to care.

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Views of houses near Jennie’s. Rooftop solar panels were scattered on houses and barns everywhere we went. Rooftops were always clay tile or slate. An occasional standing seam metal roof but no asphalt shingles.

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Jet lagged but enjoying an afternoon visit to ruins of Burg Lichtenberg (Castle). Jennie, Roni, Becky, Deanne (and Christie Dog)

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View from the room at the top of the Castle Tower. Below is the town of Hobbiton on the Shire. If you look closely you may see the gaffer tending gardens, oops, I mean Lichtenberg. According to Wikipedia this is the largest castle ruin in Germany.

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Photo below is not mine. Got this from Wiki because I couldn’t get an overall shot of the whole ruins…

There was a timeline sign at the entry noting that in 1529 “Ulrich Zwingli stayed here on his way to Marburg”. Reformation history is interesting to me so I’ll expand on that, skip this if you are not interested… Zwingli was a contemporary of Martin Luther and both were strong leaders and writers of the Protestant Reformation in Germany (Luther) and Switzerland (Zwingli). They attended the “Marburg Colloquy” held in 1529 in Castle Marburg at the request of Philipp I of Hesson. Philipp wanted to unite the protestant states for political reasons and hoped to bring Luther and Zwingli together (with other protestant leaders) to reconcile their theological differences, spiritual unity enabling political unity. They agreed together on most reformation points but disagreed on the Eucharist (communion). Luther believing the Eucharist represented much more than a symbol of the body and blood of Christ and Zwingli believing it didn’t. Alas, they did not reconcile differences, which is a fundamental reason that even though Martin Luther was incredibly important to the Reformation, the Lutheran church is not considered a “protestant reformed” church today. Later reformers, particularly John Calvin, held more closely (though not exactly) to Zwingli’s position. But getting back to Lichtenberg, Zwingli stayed HERE on his way to Marburg – history is so cool, especially history where there is still a physical (in this case and this is often the case) remnant of Architecture to walk through and imagine people being in the same place centuries before.

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Up to a castle turret and view out of the arrow slits.

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Another view from the tower showing the entry into the courtyard, the well in the courtyard and the remains of the fireplace and floor supports on the walls inside the castle.

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Steeples and Door Knobs… You’ll begin to see a theme if you keep following this.

Seeing cool old lever handles makes me wonder how is it that it took an act of Congress (literally, ADA Act of 1990) to force us away from knobs and back to levers that were in common use a thousand years ago?

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Architectural Oddity: inside the castle ruins there is this modern Dinosaur Museum! I thought the entry with glass walls, doors and roof was nice.

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Another Architectural Oddity: Unusual to see a steel beam running from interior to exterior, especially through glass… those wacky Germans.

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That about wraps up Day 1. Back to Niedermohr to rest up for Day 2 and enjoy Jennie and Roni’s wonderful hospitality!