König des Hügels...und die Burg.

Ryan is much more experienced when it comes to castles, but today was my first real castle in Europe. I did my research and read reviews and determined that the Burg Hohenzollern was worth checking out. We left around 11 this morning and drove just under an hour Southwest to Hechingen. The drive was great even though the weather was cloudy and the forests are rather gray. The castle is up on a very steep hill that overlooks the countryside and the nearby town Hechingen. We parked near the top after driving up an extremely narrow road. We then had to walk a quarter of a mile at a steep incline to get to the castle's entrance.

 We were able to stroll around the outer wall, explore the courtyard, take pictures, and drink gluhwein while we waited for the tour in English to begin. As we were waiting in line the crowd suddenly tripled to about 30 people. Our tour guide who was about 70 years old spoke very broken English and seemed overwhelmed by the crowd. He was very knowledgeable though about the castle and the family history. The castle has been reconstructed about three times and has provided temporary housing to the King of Prussia for generations

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When the tour began we entered the freezing cold rooms of the castle and were instructed to put on gigantic wool slippers over our shoes. Although they definitely protect the floor they also kept my feet extra warm. Our guide shared information for about an hour as we explored numerous rooms and galleries in the castle.

After heading back down to our car we drove through the nearby town and then left for Boeblingen to stop at the grocery store before going home. Since grocery stores and restaurants are not open on Sunday I have to make sure to plan ahead so that we don't go hungry. 

I tried to make another popular German dessert. It was very simple and consists of a pre-made cake similar to angel food cake topped with berries and essentially jell-o. I added the whip cream to make it delicious!

In other news, you can be expecting more food to appear on this blog because I bought two German cookbooks (German Cooking Today and The Best of Swabian Food) and will be attempting to cook and bake like a Swabian. I was fortunate enough to find ethnic cookbooks in English so my chances of making successful meals increases exponentially.