Germany - Day 13 - Wachtersbach

I am cheating a little with the name of the town. The "a" has an umlaut over it in German so the actual spelling in English is Waechtersbach. this looks funny to me so just pretend that I went to the trouble of finding the special character necessary to properly spell the city name.

Sigrid's brother lives in Wachtersbach and we are spending a few days with him and his wife Waltraut (see previous posts). Today, we took a walk around the old part of the city and the Schloss Park.

The old schloss (castle) was once surrounded by a moat and traces its origins back to 1236.

The schloss is in really bad shape. The city now owns it and can't afford to keep up with repairs.
If you want to own a castle, you can for 1 Euro. There are many strings attached like restoring it faithfully to its original design and my guess is that you would have to make it available for public use to some extent since it is located in a public park. I really didn't try too hard to figure out the details since I have no interest or sufficient funds to take on a castle. Apparently, neither does anyone else. It has been available for purchase for years.

The nobility that lived here had a number of enterprises like stables and a brewery. The brewery made Wachtersbacher Bier until the brand was purchased by Heineken (Netherlands). I think you can still buy the beer but it isn't made here any more. You can see part of the brewery at the end of the castle wall.

The schloss walls are lined with memorials to the royal family members who lived here.

The name Wachtersbach means "stream fed pond" and you can still see the stream and pond.

The private club lake is stocked with trout.

I had a little fun with the postered wall. Here is a watercolor version of the photo from Adobe Elements.

A relatively new home.

It is a German tradition when you have a new baby to announce it to the neighbors by hanging baby clothes and a photo at your front door. In days before photos, the clothing would indicate a boy or girl.

This building goes back to 1495 or about the time that Columbus was discovering America.

Day 14 is coming.