Venture Finley: Hohenecken

So as you know we are homeschooling. Germany can be a very dreary place for many days in a row. So what do you do when you are living in Germany, you are homeschooling, and you get a 75 degree day where there is not a cloud in the sky? You take a field trip!

The kids and I went on a hike up to Hohonecken Castle, in the tiny little town of Hohonecken about 15 minutes from our home in Weilerbach.

Hohenecken was constructed sometime around 1200 and is unique in having a five-sided keep, though little of it is left. Only a few other castles have keeps with more than four sides.

The castle was of particular importance in the 1200's and during the time of the Holy Roman Empire. They helped enforce the control of a key raw material of the empire, being the forests.

The castle was sacked during the Peasants war of 1525 and during the Thirty Years War the Hohoneckeg family siezed up the Imperial declaration that the co-owners from the province Pfalz had broken the peace by supporting the Protestants, thus laying sole claim to the property.

In 1688, Hohenecken was destroyed by French troops and the castle was never rebuilt.

Once again, the views were what you would only imagine to find in a story book, with the fall folliage, and the quaint German village neatly nestled between two hillsides. We sat and took in the scenery, played in the leaves, explored the castle, and even observed a caterpillar we found in the grass.

"Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures." Lovelle Drachman