Schattenburg Castle, Feldkirch, Austria

Sept 26, 2012

Today, the weather forecast wasn't that great, so we decided to check out a nearby castle, Schattenburg, in Feldkirch, Austria. After all, most people who check out Europe do so with a view to learning about the culture, checking out old buildings and historic artifacts. You can probably tell that we are not most people! But today, we're doing it. (We had tried to get into the Bregenz museum a few days ago, but it is being remodelled, so we were out of luck.)

Like most castles, this one is on a hill. After checking out the museum there, we went into the old town (the Altstadt), and this involved a serious downhill - which you may have noticed from my previous reports is not one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.

It was a straightforward drive from our hotel, about 1/2 hour south of here. Fortunately, there is lots of non-free parking at the castle.

Photos of the castle

This photo is from the main website for this castle, here. The website appears to be in German. But this photo is better than any that I took.

Here are a few shots of the castle from outside it.

Notice the tunnel going right under it.

And these are the stairs going from town level to castle level. There are a lot of them.

Photos from the castle

The next few shots are taken from within the castle, showing the surrounding area. Most are from the highest part of the castle, the armory or keep.

Photos of stuff inside the castle

Here's Stephen standing beside a double bed. Honest, that's what the sign said. They must have been really cosy back then.

A really funky clock, circa 1700. It's a wooden astronomical clock, and it shows the hours, months, signs of the zodiac, the planetary hour, the days of the week, the times of sunrise and the phases of the moon. Whew!!

As you no doubt know, I am into needle crafts of various forms. This shows a needle painting, of silk on paper. Impressive!

The courtyard.

A coat of arms, with Stephen beside it to show that knights of yore had to be much smaller than us. It appears as though those knights didn't do much to protect their family jewels - that reddish blotch is just a piece of cloth - there is no metal there. Yep, we checked!

Flowers

We were here

While roaming through the old town, we came upon an ice cream place, and quickly learned that they make the famous Spaghetti Ice Cream that I had grown to love on previous trips to Germany. This is ice cream that is extruded through something like a ricer and then is topped with strawberry sauce and grated white chocolate, so that it looks like spaghetti with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. Yummy!

We then moseyed back to Bregenz, where Stephen has taken off for a long walk, while I am staying at the hotel on pain killers writing this up.

Tomorrow, we leave Bregenz, and spend one night in Zurich, before heading home on Friday. I'm ready.