Auerbach Castle

This morning, some more Canadians arrived in Germany - Dave, Ed and Larry - so Ralph and Susan took all of us out together to see Auerbach Castle. Before looking around, we stopped for lunch at the castle's restaurant. Instead of food, Ralph ordered beer and kirsch shots for those that were still jetlagged. With 1 day of wisdom under my belt, I turned down the kirsch and stuck to apfelsaftschorle (apple juice and mineral water).









The castle is at the top of a really big hill, but unfortunately it was really foggy so we couldn't get any decent photos of the view. We looked around the castle a bit then headed off down the walking path to the bottom of the hill. The kirsch hit poor Larry a bit hard, so we had to stay vigilant to make sure he didn't go off the edge. I was scouting for geocaches on the hike down, but we didn't get close enough to hunt for any.

At the bottom, we stopped for apple pie and hot chocolate in Zwingenberg, and discussed whether the town could build it's tourism by promoting itself as "swing-enberg". Note to the locals - start buying stock in pleather corsets and furry handcuffs now, before the boom hits.

After a break at the apartment watching Ralph's favourite movie, Lucky Number Slevin, we headed out to dinner. It was even more amazing than yesterday. We went to a restaurant that specializes in wild game. Since wild boar is in season, we all ordered it in various forms. Mine was cooked like mini steak medallions - awesome! I should have a pun here. How about, sup-boar-b.

Meetings for the conference start tomorrow, so Ralph drove us all to Ludwigsburg to get settled at the Nestor Hotel. I think it was about an hour's drive, but I'm not sure because I fell asleep in the car. This year, my room got upgraded so I've got a shower AND bathtub. Score!