Satzvey Castle and Bad Münstereifel

The Wednesday that Brenda and Tony were here, I stayed back at the apartment in Embken with Mikayla while they did some exploring of the area on their own. I had some things that I wanted to get done around the apartment, and I wanted Mikayla to get a day where not much was happening and where she was able to take a nap in her bed and not on the go in the car or in the backpack carrier. It turned out to be even better that I did stay home, since it rained almost the entire time they were gone. They had wanted to go see the nearby town of Nideggen, but only got as far as the entry gates to the old part of the city before it started pouring down rain and they had to turn around and go back to the car. They did drive around and see some of the Eifel National Park in their car, though.

When we woke up Thursday morning and looked outside, the sky looked clear. I think it stayed that way until about the time we were ready to leave, and then it started raining again. It rained on and off all day, but luckily there were enough breaks in the showers that we could get some sight seeing in. I was pretty excited about showing Brenda and Tony around this day, so I was glad that the rain didn't cancel our plans to go see Satzvey Castle and Bad Münstereifel.

Satzvey Castle is a great little castle located in a town about 20 minutes or so from Embken. I had passed by it before when I was first exploring the area with Mikayla, but had never gone in. Darren and I keep talking about going, but it had never worked out. It is a very well-maintained castle and it still has its moat. We parked and walked around a bit, but soon found out that we couldn't actually go inside the castle since it was closed on Thursdays. There were lots of workers around, setting up tents and booths and things like that for the Medieval Festival that they were having there starting the next day. We were able to get a few good pictures of the outside of the castle (as on the other days, most of the pictures in this post are Tony and Brenda's), but then headed on to Bad Münstereifel.

Burg Satzvey

Brenda and Tony in front of Burg Satzvey

Mikayla and I in front of Burg Satzvey

Part of the decorations for the festival

Map of Burg Satzvey

I was so excited to be able to bring someone else to Bad Münstereifel. I had been there early on in our stay in Germany, but only with Mikayla. And she wasn't nearly as excited to see the cute little walled town as I was. At the time I thought I would be bringing most of our visitors there to see it since I enjoyed it so much, but it hadn't worked out until now to come back. It was fun to be able to share the experience of the town with other people who were enjoying it as much as I did. And we got to explore even more of the town that I was able to when I was there the first time. We didn't even mind the rain that came on intermittently when we were there, since we were mostly able to duck into churches or places like that when it got too wet.

It was a little eerie when we were walking along near the city walls and what can only be described as an air raid siren started. Even though none of us there had ever been through anything that would be even remotely associated with an air raid, we all recognized the sound. It went on for quite awhile, then stopped. I asked my landlady about it later that night when we were back at the apartment, and she said that they do that when there is a fire in the village or if there is a particularly bad pile-up on the autobahn.

Mikayla touring the town in her stroller

Pointing out something exciting... maybe a birdy? Or a doggy?

One of the entrance gates to the walled part of the city

The main entrance to the castle above the town

Brenda with a British style telephone booth and post box... not sure why they are there, but we took pictures with them.

A suit of armor in a window of the castle

A garden walk in Bad Münstereifel

The walls of Bad Münstereifel

Inside the main church in Bad Münstereifel.

More of the interior of the church

Tony on a bridge in Bad Münstereifel

Tony and Brenda walked the walls of the old city while Mikayla and I walked below. This is one of the views that they had when they were up there.

More views from up on the wall

Brenda on the wall

The other big church in town. The one was called built in the Roman style, or at least that was how it was described.

Inside of the church

More inside of the church

The stained glass windows in the church were very unique and modern looking.

That evening, after Darren got home from work, we decided to go try out the little restaurant in town. Darren and I had never been there before, but heard good things from people around here. The one time we had tried to go before, it ended up being closed, so we were glad that it was open this day. Our land lady had a menu from the restaurant in our apartment, so we spent awhile before we went interpreting the menu and figuring out what we wanted. When we got to the restaurant, though, the owner didn't give us menus, but rather asked us if we wanted the Rahmschnitzel, which is a schnitzel with a cream sauce. I think it was the only thing being made that day. Luckily, that is what I had decided that I wanted, and the others were agreeable to trying it out. We were the only ones in the dining room the entire time we were there, and it was a nice place to eat. And they made the one dish well. It will be interesting to see, if we do go back, whether or not it is always that same schnitzel that they serve or if they rotate it to the other things that the menu said they had.

The Palandar Hof, the restaurant in Embken.