Germany Day 16 - "Beach" day

We started the day by seeing one of the castles that was on the list for yesterday and was cancelled due to our headaches. It was time to see Sigmaringen castle!

Sigmaringen was owned by the same family as the Hohenzollern castle from the day before, however, they are different branches, probably cousins or somehing. The Sigmaringen family side was technically not as powerful (the other castle was owned by the King of Prussia and such), this castle was actually in a city, and was therefore the center of the administration for the area. The Hohenzollern castle was just a hunting lodge, and Sigmaringen was actually a family home.

The difference was huge. Sigmaringen castle was exactly what I assumed most 17^th/18^th century castles were like: huge dining room, entrance hall symbology, parlour after parlour after parlour for visiting certain types of guests, etc. It was interesting to see the lady of the house's rooms, which included a “modern” bathroom, then a room where she could recover from her bath and discuss what dress to wear for the day (this room had shorter ceilings b/c the dresses were in an attic space above the room, and the servants could get to the dresses from a secret servant door panel), then a room where she was dressed for the day (and had to change 3-6 times each day, for different parts of the day activities), and finally, her bedroom, private study, and private living room.

It was an awesome tour, and we finished up by doing the highly recommended audio tour of the armory. It was FULL of old weapons and lots of great info on the audio tour about the medieval history of weapons.

After that, we ate lunch at our airbnb and then off to Meersburg, a German city on Lake Constance, which borders France and Austria. It was, of course, another super cute medieval town, totally pretty and full of windy streets and way too cute of buildings, palaces, castles, etc. We had hoped to eat at a stunning winery on the lakeside, but it was closed due to a private event, which was kinda frustrating because they didn't mention it on their website and we had technically driven 40 minutes to see it.

Fortunately, there was gelato all over the place, and since it was another hot day, we sat in a pretty courtyard and ate some tasty gelato. This town was creepy quiet. For real. It was FULL of German people, all eating at tables outdoors or walking up and down the lake side. But Germans barely ever talk over a quiet voice, so the town was quiet. We stopped at one point to listen, and it was so crazy how crowds that big could be so quiet. Americans are WAY too loud at everything they do. I wouldn't mind cities so much if they could be this quiet! No screaming kids, no loud voices, no music at all, no anything. Paul said that these were his people. Laugh.

After the gelato and listening to quiet crowds, we walked in the blazing hot hot sun for a little bit to a place where we could go swimming. It took a bit of time to figure out where to swim, because there isn't sandy beaches, but instead a few gaps in the trees where you can get down to the water. The water felt AMAZING. We were hot and sweaty and the water was super clean, clear, and cold. We soaked it all up and relaxed for a good long time before heading back to the airbnb.

Tomorrow should be interesting! We'll be heading toward the mountains, Austria, and Paul will try tobaggoning.