Frankenstein’s Castle

That top one is not my picture… it’s one I found on the internet to show a full shot of the castle.  The day we explored the castle there were men all over taking down the Haunted House remains from Halloween Night…. which, we could tell from all the stuff,  was quite a big and likely frightening affair. 

A little history of the Burg Frankenstein just to start things off… located near Darmstadt,  Burg Frankenstein has been mentioned in documents dating as far back as 948. Built on Langenberg by the noble Frankenstein family, the castle was once a large imposing fortress. Some of the ruins seen today date to the 13th century, while others are of centuries more recent.  In 1662, the Frankenstein family sold the castle to the Darmstadt Landgraves. In 1673, the German theologian, physician, and alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel was born at the castle, and would add Frankensteinensis to his signature, indicating his birth at Frankenstein Castle. Legend has it that Johann Dippel was a body snatcher who would try to reanimate the dead, but this legend seems to have come about after Mary Shelly's book, so it's probably stretching the truth, although body snatching was not uncommon amongst some physicians.  Whether Mary Shelly was inspired by Frankenstein Castle in her novel is unknown. She has been known to travel in the area, but this doesn't mean she visited the castle or even knew of it's existence. Some say Mary's stepmother, Mary Jane Clairmont, who translated the writings of the Brothers Grimm, told Mary a tale she heard from Jacob Grimm. According to Jacob, in the prison of Frankenstein Castle, Johann Conrad Dippel tried to build a being out of human parts and virgin blood.

It’s amazing how cold it got just in one week.  Definitely starting to feel like winter setting in – and that does not make me happy.  The Chuggs came down Friday and we played games and then left the kids home while we took Jared and Geneva to one of our favorite German restaurants to celebrate my birthday.  They slept over and the next day after a relaxing morning we headed up to the Frankenstein Castle to look around.  Sure is nice to have the Chuggs live only an hour away.

11 Chugg and Johnson kids…

  

This is the Frankenstein Castle Chapel and while we were there at least two wedding parties were there getting married in this tiny chapel and taking pictures around the castle grounds.  Who gets married at the Frankenstein castle?  Maybe they are distant relatives.

After we were taking pictures with this random black chair we found just sitting here, a man took it and added it to the bonfire they had created to take care of some of the remains of the wood Halloween décor.  It shocked us.  We would have taken that chair if we knew they were just going to burn it.  It made us kind of laugh. 

After walking around and checking out the view from the few towers we let the kids play ‘Sardines’.  Katie and Hanna found a GREAT hiding spot and the kids had a tough time finding them.