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Burg Eltz: The Iconic Hidden Gem
Video Below!
Burg Eltz is a charming castle and tourist attraction, so you NEEEEEED to get there early! It opens at 9:30 AM, and in this case we got there at around 9:45 AM. This gave us enough time for some great photos without many people while walking down the hill, and then we got in line to buy tickets. By the time we actually were at the ticket counter it was 10:00 AM, and we only had to wait a couple minutes to get through. I highly recommend getting there as early as 8:00 AM though if you want some spectacular photos and time to yourself.
What makes Burg Eltz so cool is that it is built on top of a cliff/hill, which itself resides inside of a valley. The first naming of the castle as the Eltz was in the 1100’s. Keep in mind, eventually the castle housed 4 different families, and each of the families added their own touches to the castle. So realistically, the castle is itself, split into 4 different sections, 1 for each family. It is still owned and operated by the Eltz family. You can get a tour of the castle, which we did. It was pretty cool.
They have turned parts of the castle into a museum of sorts, and when you first walk in, you see some of the early weapons of the middle ages. One such weapon was the halberd, which has an axe on the end of a wooden pole. The other side of the axe is a blunt piece of metal used for knocking people off their horses, and lastly there was a spike at the tip for stabbing. The tools they used to have!
In the dining room, we learned that the most precious things during the middle ages were heat and light, which was why the castle was built with a lot of windows and tables near the windows for maximum natural lighting. They also had many large fireplaces for good heating. They even had some of the original furniture still in the room, as well as 2 paintings, 1 of which was painted by a friend of Martin Luther, the man considered to be the founder of the Lutheran religion.
After that we entered the bedroom. It was super unique! It still had the original scrolled paintings from the middle ages covering the walls and ceiling. They repainted the paintings in the 1900’s as a restoration measure. An outward protruding portion of the room housed a small chapel with an altar and stained glass. Doors would swing to shut to separate this spiritual world from the normal world. To get to the bed, you had to climb 4 steps. This is where the saying “climb in to bed” originates, as people had to literally climb into the bed. Attached to the bed were drapes that would be closed during the night to seal in the warmth during cold winters. The room even had a toilet! It was only in the 1900’s that the Eltzs’ borrowed from Turkish influence the putting of doors on the toilets for privacy.
Adjacent to the bedrooms were two more rooms. One room was a writing room and the other room was the dressing room. The following room was the famous five-sided room. Since the room was located on the cliff side, it had to have 5 walls instead of the traditional 4 to accommodate the cliff side. It housed some china and porcelain dishes.
Next came the festival/meeting room, where the members of the different families could meet to have parties or discussions. Guests were also received in this room. This room had a 3D face and a rose sculpted into the walls. The face represented to the families that anyone could speak their mind and opinion openly in this room, without fear of consequences or ridicule. Above the door, the rose signified that you were sworn to secrecy about what was spoken upon leaving the room. A jester was also sculpted into the wall, but I don’t know what it meant. Additionally, the family crests and flags were painted all around the perimeter of the room, showing that the Eltz family had good relations with these various families, making them a trustworthy mediator for them.
The final room was the kitchen. The kitchen was cool because it had its own refrigerator. The walls of the castle were so thick (around 2 meters), that after carving out part of the wall and placing a door on it, a simple fridge was made. It could extend the life of food by up to a week. Meats would be hung from the ceiling for preservation, and they even had a wood-fired oven! They also had an early stove top. It was a flat stone, that would be heated from beneath with fire and allowed pots to be heated for cooking and boiling water.
Following our tour, we walked around the castle in the valley, where a river flows through. This area also has many different nature trails. One of the trails is a footpath to the parking lot, it takes about 20 minutes to walk. Another trail goes along the river/stream that surrounds the castle. They also have shuttles to deliver people from the parking lot above down to the castle, so when you arrive make sure you take the right trail! You can also, supposedly, arrive at the castle by boat, but we don’t really know how that works.
Burg Eltz is a pretty popular castle for Instagram photos, and photos with a pretty castle, so it gets rather touristy. By the time we left (around 11), there was a line with about a 2 hour wait to get into the castle. It is a good thing we got there early!