Interesting Discovery

A RECENT visit to Bad Neuenahr in Rhineland-Palatinate gave me the chance to do some walking-come-exploring, which led a modest but pleasing find.

I followed a mostly flat trail of 9.9 kilometres (6.2 miles), but that ended with a steepish ascent of 182 metres (597 feet) up a hill that used to be topped by a Roman watchtower

The surviving ruins at the summit are from a 13th-century castle, built to aid the Hohenstaufen cause in a conflict between rival kings of Germany

Impressive  views from the castle walls can be enjoyed of the surrounding countryside, which in medieval times included an important military road connecting Aachen (aka Aix-la-Chapelle) in the West to Frankfurt on the River Main 

How the castle may have looked

The castle seems to have had a fairly uneventful existence, before being abandoned and allowed to decay, but a nearby chapel, also from the 1200s, is in much better shape

Unfortunately I could not go in as I did not have a 50-cent coin for the door, and it would not accept my one-euro coin!