Eltz castle is situated at the Eltz River and is private property of the counts of Eltz. They used to have their own money in the good old times when Germany still had real money, the Deutschmark and I mean their own Money.

The castle is some way away from settlements and for the last stage you either have to walk or to take a shuttle bus. But that only runs during the season which starts in April. So we had to walk. On our way through the nice forest this little friend crossed the way so I had to check on the side of the way where he went to. Sheila found some holes in the bark of a tree at the side and we pointed my cell phone camera at the spot. And got this nice picture. The mouse wasn’t bothered at all by the flashlight but it disappeared as soon as I moved just a bit. It looked like a dragon guarding it’s hole.

Then we made it to the castle after 20 minutes.

We saw several of those signs which I havn’t seen before. You are never old enough to not learn something new.

The castle also is a good example of failed projects in Germany as it was placed at a strategically bad place. At the start it could withstand while being besieged until 1336 by Balduin of Trier (powerful archbishop and elector) but then the enemy placed another castle (Trutzelzt) on a higher rock nearby (size matters) from which he was able to operate a big catapult and to shoot at Castle Eltz. So they had to give up soon, no big damage was done, the castle was taken over by Balduin but then given back to the old owners as fiefdom who were no longer free knight but subjects.

Eltz Castle was also portrayed a lot and I just recently came across this print in an Italian restaurant, just behind my pasta.

Three brothers shared the property in form of a Ganerbschaft, a joint ownership famliy estate forming three major family lines all sitting together on this castle. They followed the rules of the „Burgfrieden„. As there was not much space in width they had to built upward to all have something of their own. One family branch died out and the second part was sold 1815 to Count Hugo Philipp (called the Fist of Stromberg) and therefor the castle is only possessed now by the one line Eltz-Kempenich (Golden Lion) of the family. (for more than 800 years now)

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