Schloss Montabaur is a castle that is visible from one of the autobahns that we frequently travel.

Its yellow color makes it quite noticeable, and after a couple of years of saying “We should go there one day”, we finally did.

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You can see in the photo that there are a couple of people holding umbrellas. Unfortunately as soon as we parked the car it started raining, so the day of touring was a little marred by that.

Before we visited the Schloss we walked around the old town first.

The name of the town of Montabaur derives from Mount Tabor in Israel. An Archbishop from the 13th century was familiar with Mount Tabor from his crusade to the Holy Land. He named the town’s newly-built castle Mons Tabor, and that evolved into Montabaur.

Upon arriving in town, we parked in an underground garage at Konrad-Adenauer-Platz. We have seen more streets and squares named after Konrad Adenauer than you can shake a stick at. He was the first Chancellor of West Germany after World War II and basically restored the country to economic prosperity.

Near the parking garage is this statue, just under the roof of a building opposite the Town Hall.

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He’s called the Schusterjunge or Shoemaker’s Boy. The gesture he’s making is that of tapping his forehead to indicate that those who occupy the Town Hall are a little crazy. Supposedly he does this every 15 minutes. It didn’t appear to me that the statue had moving parts, but I didn’t want to stand around in the rain long enough to find out.

This is the Altes Rathaus or Old Town Hall, where the mayor’s office is located.

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It’s located on the Größer Markt or Greater Market, where goods were traded as far back as the year 1291.

It was built in 1870 out of red bricks and is the third Town Hall at that site. The building is also called The Red Lion in reference to when trials were held there during the Middle Ages. The lion was a symbol of the courts. 

That may or may not be why there’s a lion’s head fountain on the front of the building.

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The fountain is called the Sauerbrunnen, which translates literally to “sour fountain”, and you can drink the water. I tasted it and am here to tell you it’s called sour fountain for good reason. The water contains high levels of carbonic acid and iron and is supposed to be good for your health.

The sign above the fountain indicates that it’s located on one of the European long-distance hiking trails.

Just across the market square from the Sauerbrunnen is another fountain called the Marktbrunnen or Market Fountain.

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There was previously a well at the site of the fountain. The fountain itself has reliefs showing the history of the town as well as the 13 original town gates and 13 medieval merchant guild symbols.

This house is called the Melchior House.

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The house was an inn dating from the year 1589, but in the 18th century there was a family feud that resulted in manslaughter. After that the building was split in two by a dividing wall on the ground floor. I don’t know about you, but that probably wouldn’t be enough to settle a feud for me. I wonder whatever happened to the family and whether the dividing wall allowed them to live in peace.

We took a stroll down Kirchstraße or Church Street, which is full of half-timbered houses from the late 17th/early 18th century.

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The houses were all originally owned by old patrician families. The one in that photo belonged to the von Stein family, who lived in a different house and rented that one out to city officials.

Kirchstraße is named after this church, the church of St. Peter.

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It was completed in the mid-14th century and was rebuilt and refurbished several times over the years, most recently in 2003.

After checking out the interior of the church we went for a bite to eat at the nearby Casa Nuova restaurant. Sean and I both had pizzas. I had a spinach and garlic pizza and Sean had his usual meat-feast pizza. It was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had and being that Montabaur is only about an hour away from us I would not hesitate to go there just to have another one of those pizzas. Sean said his was very tasty as well.

This half-timbered building behind the church is called the Fuhrmannskapelle or Wagoner’s (as in a person who drives a wagon) Chapel.

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Also called St. Anna’s chapel, it was built around the year 1300 and it used to be the cemetery chapel.

This tower, located a little further behind the church, is called the Schwedenturm or Swedes’ Tower.

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It was originally part of the defensive city walls.

A short walk away is another tower from the original city walls that looks pretty similar to the Schwedenturm.

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Called the Stadtmauerturn Schiffchen, it was used both for defensive purposes and as a jail for petty criminals.

From the tower’s location you have a view of the Sauertal below.

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It was formerly the main road to and from Montabaur. You can see that the defensive walls and towers would have been pretty high up and also would have allowed guards to see anyone who was approaching.

This little alley is called Werbhausgasse.

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There is an inn on this street dating back to the year 1476. In the 1700s, military officers used to stay at the inn to recruit soldiers, so the street became known as Recruiters’ Alley. I’m not sure what the “GO VEG!” graffiti is all about but I’m assuming it’s a plea to go vegetarian. I’ve seen a lot of English signs along those lines in Germany.

Continuing down that little alley, we ended up back at the intersection of Kirchstraße and the Größer Markt.

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You can see the yellow castle in the background, but before going in that direction we backtracked a little up Kirchstraße to see this house.

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It’s believed to be the oldest house in town.

If you’re in the market for a half-timbered house from the year 1682, this one is for sale.

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You can see the date in blocks underneath the top window.

It always makes me a little sad to see those types of houses when they’re in a dilapidated state, but the fact that they’re still standing at all is amazing. They must cost a fortune to renovate and maintain. That house is located at the Kleiner Markt, which is the Small Market Square. In the Middle Ages, it’s where the daily dairy market was held.

This house is in a section of town called Rebstock.

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You can even see the word Rebstock on the left-hand side of the house. Rebstock means vine in German and it is believed that there was once a vineyard in this area.

Until World War II, there was a large Jewish population in the Rebstock area.

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We passed by several of these “stumble stones”, called Stolpersteine in German. The stones commemorate victims of the Holocaust and are placed in front of the victim’s last residence. The stone pictured above shows that Alfred Löb was born in 1893 and lived at that location. He was forced to move to Koblenz in in 1938 and was then deported in 1942. It says that he was deported in an easterly direction and his fate is unknown.

I think that’s the first stone I’ve seen like that. Many of the stones indicate which concentration camp the person was taken to and sadly most of them say “Ermordet”, which means murdered, followed by a date. For example, the next stone we ran across indicated the person was deported to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic. That stone said “Tot 29.9.1942” which means the person died (as opposed to being murdered) on September 29th, 1942. It definitely makes you stop and reflect when you notice the stones.

After leaving the Resbstock area, we finally walked up the hill to the castle, which was built between 1687 and 1709.

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The castle now houses, among other things, a business school and a conference center.

There appeared to be some kind of team-building event going on the day we went, with people participating in all kinds of activities including this one.

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Yes, those people are playing a game of human Foosball. Each person is attached to one of the rods with a belt so they couldn’t move out of place. It was bizarre yet entertaining.

We sort of felt like we were intruding on the event and really there’s not much to see at the castle, so we walked back down to town at that point.

There were just a few more things on the walking tour that we wanted to see, but I was getting tired of walking around in the rain so we just went back to the car. We ended up seeing two of the sights from the car on the way out of town so it was good enough for me.

 

About the author: Trish

 

Website: http://travelsandtipples.com