We had big plans to get up and out by 9. Lol. With a baby and 2 jetlagged Moozes, not entirely sure why we decided on this. When the baby woke at 6:30, I texted the other room to let them know this is a dumb plan and to sleep in if they need to, and as I was texting this all groggy myself, the baby did me a wonderful favour and fell asleep in my arms. We all slept in until 8:30, slowly got ready, ate pastries and drank coffee, got our bearings, and set off for our host's recommended castle in the area along the Rhine, seeing as there were at least 50 within a half hour drive.
The castle we hit up, Marksburg in Braubach, was actually the only castle that has never been succeeded or destroyed and thus the most well maintained and authentic castle. The closest it has ever come to any damage were a few earthquakes, and some minor exterior damage due to some shelled bombing by American artillery in WW2. Again, this is a combo of Justin's and Adam's photos:
Another fun fact, the German's Castle Association (the oldest private initiative for the preservation of Germany's historic buildings) is hosted from within these walls. Something something something else about it.
We were on a time limit today since Justin had somewhere to be. We packed up after getting some drone footage, and double backed to Koblenz. This is where we were originally trying to stay but couldn’t find any available Airbnbs. This was such a gorgeous town, but unfortunately we didn’t have much time outside of grabbing food at a biergarten on the river. None of us could decide between the options, so we got 4 random meals (a schnitzel in mushroom sauce, a meatball with potato salad, a bratwurst on a bun, and a salad). We sat at a table with a meal in front of each of us, we’d grab a few bites and enjoy what was in front of us and all unanimously called “SWTICH”, lifted the plate and moved it clockwise, where we could enjoy the next meal. We continued this for a few rounds and decided this was a great plan to continue on for the rest of this trip in order to try as much food as possible. Baby was napping in the stroller for majority of this nonsense but woke just in time as we were packing up. We were all sweating from just sitting there, so before heading out, we grabbed some ice cream. And as much as we don’t want to give sugar and such to the baby, and as bad as I am at sharing, I couldn’t resist giving the munchkin a taste of it. She didn’t figure out biting it or licking it, but would just essentially kiss it and it made her so happy, so who was I to say no?!
We barely saw the town, but we would give it 5 Beyonces from what we did see, and definitely somewhere we'd want to come back. We also happened to have our own Beyonce on the go with us, look at that hair flow in the wind:
We had no time to check out the rest of the town as the clock was ticking and Justin had a call to show up an hour earlier for his briefing than expected. So we packed up and got on the road for the hour drive to non other than Nurburgring, because when in Germany….
On a scale of 1 to 5 Beyonces, Justin was apparently 10,000,000 Beyonces and infinite amount of Jay-Z’s excited. For those unaware, it’s the most famous racetrack in the world for multiple reasons, including it being the most difficult, the biggest change in altitude throughout the track, and the fact that 80% of the corners are blind. I was so much happier before I knew all this. Luckily baby acted out so we had to leave the briefing after the first slide that started with “this will either be the best day of your life or the worst”, and I’m still happily oblivious to the rest of it. Justin had rented a car and got 6 laps on this track, one of which was a must with an instructor, and the other 5 were divided up between Adam, Nando, and myself. I vowed to never do this again.
Others were pretty ecstatic and loved the experience.
We also learned that although she's not even 1 yet, she's already got a bit of a competitive streak and insists on being in first place. Would not stay on second or third.
Justin came back in a complete euphoric state.
We flew the drone a bit to get the track and the Nürburg castle, and we headed back home to get some dinner from a Turkish-Italian-Mexican Fusion place. It was one of the only choices near our place and came highly recommended, apparently this was quite a common fusion, but I’m pretty sure whatever we ordered (without a word of english and zero idea) was a Berlin doner from what our friends described, so at least we still stayed true to Germanic food.