Emergent Elucidations: Day Trip: DE 3

I can't say Landau (Rheinland-Pfalz) was ever on our bucket list, but after LM moved there to study it gained new interest. To break up the two-hour car ride, however, we slipped in a few stops along the way.

First was the hike around the ruins of the Falkenburg, which dates back to the 11th century. As was typical for much of "Germany" until unification in the 19th century, it changed hands among locals, Austrians, and Bavarians and was occupied by Swedish troops before ultimately being destroyed by the French.

Built on a sandstone outcrop, it's hard to see the line between outcrop and castle.

In fact, the parts that are left are mostly what was built out of the sandstone outcropping (as presumably everything else was carted off at some point).

And nowadays, the 250-million-year-old colored sandstone itself is the main attraction.

This hard, silica-bearing, coarse-grained sandstone laid down in what was once a desert was a popular regional building material.

Some of it was used for the church and the Trifels Castle in the town of Annweiler am Trifels (RP).

Although famous for Richard the Lionheart having been imprisoned in the castle (in 1193), during our wanderings we discovered that the town itself is small but delightful.

A tributary of the Rhein river (the Queich) runs right through town, and for many years was put to work powering flour mills and tanneries.

The half-timbered houses along the stream were mostly built in the 15th century.

These days, the economy is driven by tourists--including what looked like an entire primary school class (swarming over an ice cream stand).

Our last intermediary stop was Burg Meistersel (RP), built of by now familiar reddish sandstone.

Like any good fortification, it sits on a hill and has excellent vistas in most directions onto the UNESCO Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve.

Once again, not much of the original ca. 11th century castle remains.

And most of that was once again built out of the hill itself.

All those chip marks bring home the reality of medieval hand-tunneling.

But the resident common wall lizards did not seem impressed.

That afternoon we finally arrived in Landau, checked out LM's tiny studio apartment, and then let him guide us through the campus of the Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität.

Although the buildings are modern, the campus was actually built within one of the 17th century star-shaped bastions of the Fortress of Landau, which was an important French outpost designed by Vauban.