Our next stop on our way to Darmstadt is Auerbach Castle just off the main road according to the map. Just off meaning in this case passing through a village and then climbing via a narrow one way street to the parking lot which is full. So now we have to find another parking space, luckily there is one a bit below for some trails but we use it to visit the castle like almost everyone else who parks here.
We know pass the full parking lot and then pass a bridge and soon are at the entrance through the outer fortification.
Auerbach Castle is one of several fortresses along the Bergstrasse in southern Hesse, Germany. It was originally built by King Charlemagne and then rebuilt by Count Diether IV of the Katzenelnbogen dynasty in the second quarter of the 13th century. Now it is actually a popular restaurant, many people in the cars in the parking lot are here actually for the restaurant not the impressive keep. But we make our way directly to the keep, taking a few photos and then passing the drawbridge into the keep.
The keep courtyard is quite beautiful and it even has some shade which we really enjoy as the heat is quite unbearable by this point.
Even so we decide to climb to the top of the keep and the climb is through the former living quarters which are quite impressive and are also shaded as a bonus.
Climbing takes a while to not overheat ourselves as the people climbing down seem to be quite out of it. On the way we find a beautiful treasure chest but there is no gold treasure inside, too bad for us. And then we are up top and it is a beautiful view over the area we just climbed and we enjoy it a bit before continue to walk on the battlements.
The views are beautiful all around and we make our way to the second tower that can also be climbed. But we decide not to climb it as there are too many people inside and also the whole passage is out into the sun, not for us today.
From the shade we continue enjoying the views of the keep and wonder if anything else can be climbed, not for now but for another time. But in the end it is time to descend back into the courtyard avoiding the poor people that just started the climb.
Back down we explore the keep and the area beneath the keep and the outer fortifications for a while but soon we decide to retreat to the air conditioned car, our fall back cooling station basically.
On the way down via the one way road we discover there is a geocache so we stop in a switchback and park of the pavement to look for the cache. Luckily there is a trail here and the cache is an easy find, so now we also found our first cache in Hessen before moving on to the Frankenstein castle.
