We started the next morning from Euguishiem, with a fresh continental breakfast and more warm beautiful weather.  The light was so perfect that I couldn't resist taking this shot of one of the town fountains with the main church overlooking it.

This is typical of a lot of the town squares and churches in the area.  The glazed tile roofs with the multiple colors in patterns and the red stone that is used for a lot of the buildings.

After taking in some more wineries and a terrific lunch.  Actually, it was a quickie lunch by French standards, we were in and out in only an hour and a half.  I'm not joking or exaggerating.  But the breast of duck with the Gewürztraminer based sauce was not to be believed.

Then we went to visit the Haut-Koenigsbourg, which means Konigsburg Castle, in English.  It was a castle that was built to control the area initially, and it started life in the twelfth century.  It was extremely important since it was in the middle of a trade route that crossed the Alps from the North-South and East-West directions.  It was as important to keep a trade route under your control back then as it is now, if you wanted to make it in local politics.  Thus the castle was very valuable to the local economy and the despot that controlled the trade route.

The Konigsburg Castle was not one of those foo-foo Chateaus you so often associate with France.  This was a fort, plain and simple.  And it was designed to repel hordes of highly aggressive attackers for a long time, 600 years give or take a century or two.  

Unfortunately it was sacked three times.  The first time was the worst, and it was the Swedes that laid it low.  They literally burned it to the ground during the Thirty Years War, so the pamphlet tells me.

The first two pictures give you a sense of the scale of this castle.  It was restored from 1900 to 1908 after it was given to the Hohenzollerens, who then lost it to the French in the Treaty of Versailles after WWII.  And it didn't get destroyed at all in the second WW.  

It continues to be a museum of the military type of days gone by.  I just thought it was a great toy where you could go and play with swords, cannons, and building blocks, then get a good glass of wine.

On the inside of the castle every door has a couple of gates, possibly a moat with drawbridge, and the occasional meshed iron gate that comes down from the ceiling. 

In the first picture Jim, Mick, and I are standing on the drawbridge between the bakery and the main castle tower. 

The second picture shows the same drawbridge and moat viewed from the other side.  The face on the wall always makes me think of that Monty Python scene where the French guy says; "Go away before I taunt you again", in a really bad French accent.

The third picture gives you a sense of the scale of the castle from another angle.  And it also gives a sense of being on the top of a hill overlooking a large valley.  The castle is actually about 775 meters above the valley floor, and has a commanding view for many miles.

Inside the main tower there is a museum with lots of armor, lances, halberds, scabbards, swords, pikes, and all the tools of hand to hand war of the day.  And the stained glass windows are not bad either.

You get to these exhibits after going through the dressing and dining areas for the Caesar and Queen of the castle.  It looked sort of like the locker room for a sports team.  It had that kind of feel with all the pennants hanging around of little Duchies the castle collected over time, and all the tools of the sport hanging around.  And then the occasional animal trophy hanging on the walls, kind of like a good training camp in the preseason.

The first picture shows a type of small gun that was used early in the castle's history. 

The second picture shows Jim with a much larger cannon and the terrific carving that adorned the gun.  Both of these guns were deployed along the rampart to defend the castle against opponents that were coming up the hill from the rear of the castle where the terrain was less steep.

Caroline thought this car was just too cute to leave out.  It's called a Smart car, and it runs on electricity.  It's so small you could just about put it in your back pocket and take it away.  But the color schemes we've seen for them, and some of the design flourishes on the inside make it a really attractive package.  Especially for those highly congested urban areas that are parking challenged.

After the Konigsburg castle we had to go and taste more wine.  It was a rough responsibility, but we toughed it out.  And then we ran across another castle sign and followed it to this ruin.  And to top it off, you had to hike a little to get there.  it completely ruined the buzz, but the castle was quite interesting, even in it's ruined state.

The castle has one tower, as seen in the first picture.  And it had several floors, as seen in the second picture.  It has an extraordinary view of the valley, and it has a series of outbuildings and protective walls surrounding it.

It's all overgrown now, but I think it makes a great fixer-upper if someone wants to come to France and play local despot for a while.  Who knows, it might even have a title attached to it.

We ended the day by coming back to Euguisheim and having dinner at the hotel.  It was another one of those two hour dinners that we forced ourselves through.  And it had all the trimmings, which you would have expected.  We started it off nicely with a great bottle of champagne that we had gotten the day before.  I had iced it in the room, so it was just perfect.

And Caroline got some more of those silly storks for her friends that are looking for trouble in all the right places.  Caroline also thought the boars head that was mounted over our table might make for a good picture.  I think we had partaken a bit much by then.

All in all it was another day that couldn't be beat, until tomorrow..