The Castle, the Palace and the Monastery

On the outskirts of the village of Hardenburg lies a fortress. The mighty Hardenburg, built in the 13th century, is one of the largest castle ruins in the country. It was a castle, fortress and magnificent residential palace. Like most of the ruins in Germany, the trek to get there is an uphill climb. Paved most of the way, so as to not be too bad. The first ascent is rough though, just starting out.

These last two photos are taken from the vantage point of the monastery, which I will get to in a bit.

My camera locked up during the trip, so the amount of photos I was able to get was minimal.

Once we left the castle (it was a bit much for all of us to enter inside), we headed through the village and up over 200 stairs built into the side of the mountain to ascend to the monastery.

Once you reach the top, you are greeted with a huge abbey, the Limburg Abbey. I have been unable to find a good deal of information on the abbey, but I did manage to snap a photo of the history in english stapled to an old display outside the abbey.

Before I leave this blog post, I wanted to point out a few other things of interest. The first is the monuments that stand outside the front of the monastery. Built in the 1990s, they were representations from something a monk had written. they were very odd to say the least. I need to find more information on them, but I am so behind on blog posts right now, I am mostly just trying to catch up. Below is a gallery of the monuments.

The last thing I want to mention is the tombstone that lies within the grounds of the monastery.

The grave of Queen Gunhild. I still need to do more research on her and why she is buried there.