Burg Rabenstein

On Friday, my day off work, I decided to go on an expedition to Burg Rabenstein, the smallest castle in Sachsen. There were tempting posters all around the city last week advertising 'Wikinger auf Burg Rabenstein, 3-5 Oktober' - Vikings! From this I concluded that there would be some sort of fair, like the ones we love to go to in Wrest Park in Bedfordshire with everyone dressed up in medieval costume doing jousting and the like. What's not to love?

So on Friday I set off on the long cycle ride to the Burg. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the thought of a 14-mile round trip did not deter me until right at the end, when I realised that Google maps did not account for hills/small mountains. However, after a certain amount of pushing my bike up seemingly vertical slopes while breathing heavily and sweating likewise, I arrived at the castle, and it did not disappoint.

Looks just like the pictures on Google! But I promise this is one of my own.

I went to investigate the fair, sparing a thought for everyone I know who loves this kind of thing and would have longed to be there with me. As I had hoped, there were lots of people dressed up in variously authentic Viking/general medieval costume. It was not only the people running the stalls, however, but a large number of the public seemed to have dressed up as well, which was lovely. The stalls were selling a variety of items, some being wonderfully authentic - leather and carved wooden goods, metal jewellery, honey wine and fruit beer - while some marginally less so - couscous, candy floss, and pancakes. There was also a place to demonstrate your archery skills, another to try out throwing knives and the occasional axe into a block of wood - with a surprising disregard for safety, as children gleefully ran to pick up the sharp objects from the ground around the target without looking to see if anyone still had one ready to throw - and a stage with a smaller booth next to it, where I witnessed a creepy kind of German Punch and Judy show. In my haste to escape from this, I nearly didn't notice the huge bathtub opposite in another stall, where a small child was splashing around, just, well, having a bath. I couldn't work out what the point of this was, and my confusion did not abate when I walked past again a short time later and saw that the child had been joined by a man, just sitting in the tub, both of them playing with a rubber duck, that classic Viking bath toy. 

After I'd walked round the whole fair, which took maybe three minutes, I ventured into the castle itself. A ticket to go into the Burg is 1,20 and 60 cents for students. I was thinking how ridiculously cheap this was until I remembered - smallest castle in Sachsen. They couldn't really charge more than that to visit the one room downstairs with some suits of armour and old weapons, the one, slightly larger and lighter, room upstairs with a display about the most famous owner of the castle, and the one room at the top of the tower, which contained nothing apart from lots of windows onto a beautiful view of greenery and the mountains in the distance. Nonetheless, it was absolutely delightful and cute!

Back down at the Viking fair, I ate some incandescently hot couscous and had a chat with a small boy who was clambering over the rocks where I was sitting. He asked me if I could climb up the sheer rock face behind me, and seemed somewhat surprised and concerned when I gently disillusioned him. Not sure whether the Viking disregard for human life had somehow seeped into the atmosphere, but what with the reckless children leaping around, adults chucking knives and axes about, and other children happily brandishing wooden (but still alarming) crossbows in people's faces, I was slightly on edge. This was compounded greatly by my fear that a boisterous 'Viking', getting too much into character, would cheerfully shout something to me and expect me to have a normal human response - react to the words and have a spot of friendly banter/conversation. The Vikings in general had such thick Sachsen accents that I would have had no chance if this had happened. Fortunately, luck was on my side, and after seeing a child skipping along carrying a huge swirl of candy floss on a stick, and cackling loudly and manically like a tiny witch, I knew it was going to be a good day. 

I wandered a bit more, eventually bought a Viking-ish ring after dithering for only ten minutes over which one to get, and watched some men hit each other with swords and sticks before finally beginning the arduous trek home.

If anyone is able to visit this teeny castle, I would recommend it - it's just really, really sweet. The famous owner, Frederick the something (maybe... it's a name like that), seems to have been a pretty nice guy, fairly philanthropic and good at managing his minuscule estate, and he wrote a book about botany which is on display in the castle if you want to attempt to read it and you like old-fashioned German (which of course I do - so interesting comparing it to modern German! Linguistics!!).

My mission for this week is: the Schlossteich. It's a lake in Chemnitz, theoretically accompanied by a castle, which I have been told is very pretty, so I'm excited to visit them! Even better, it's nowhere near as far away from where I live, so hopefully it won't be as pathetically exhausting as Friday's excursion.