Our first castle

Well today we went to our first castle here in Germany.  Some wonderful friends of our, the Kearnys, came down or up, not sure which, and went with us.  We went to Burg Grafenstein in Merzalben.  It is about a 35 minute drive unless you get behind three really big tractors on the road, behind bikes and have no place to pass because they make these roads so darn skinny.  :-)  It was a castle they said was built around 1237.  It was destroyed by peasants in 1525 and rebuilt between 1535-1540 and sold to Counts Palatine.  In 1635 is was destroyed in the 30 year war and was unusable in the long term.  They had a festival going on there this weekend.  Many people dressed up in costumes of the era.  Had some great food, saw sword fighting (not sure what they said since I don't know German yet) which the boys thought was really really cool.  Two guys showed up as samurai, not sure why, but man they were completely decked out.  We watched them get their costumes on and it took a good 20 minutes or more.  Also walked up the tower in the complete dark for a little bit, but the view from the top was awesome!!!  They boys conned us into buying them crossbows.  I was going for swords and shields, but they had their hearts set on these.  Look out, they are dangerous.  They had wine tasting, some were pretty good.  David had is first Cola Beir and said it tasted good.  We also had waffle miet, it is basically a waffle with powdered sugar on it.  It was great!  Both the boys LOVED it!!!  I couldn't get Michael to try the potatoes we had, but they liked the schnitzel.  At these places they give you real plates and cups and have a 4 euro deposit on every one of them.  So when you are finished and bring them back up they give you your money back.  Smart, it makes you return them.  We did keep one cup as a souvenir though.  It was a windy road up to the castle and was a beautiful drive!!  AJ asked me when we are going to the next castle.  I told him soon!!