8-5-2013 Pappenheim to Arnsburg

We went up to Burg Pappenheim but it was closed.  It dates back to 1140 and is now a museum showing the history of the House of Pappenheim.

At Dietfurt the Altmuhl valley narrows and there are limestone outcroppings.  Here is what is called the 12 apostles, 12 limestone towers along the river.

At Solnhofen the fossil Archaeopteryx was found and one of the first fossils to show the evolution from reptile to birds.  It's a big fossil area.

Bike trail coming into Hagenacker

Trail leading into Dollnstein.  Riding into the village you can see tower built on a rock outcrop.  Around 900 the was a fort with a wooden palisade  here surrounding the outcrop.  By 1100 the wood was replaced with a stone wall.  A little later a castle was built on the outcrop, but has mostly fallen into disrepair.  They had a nice museum inside some of the remaining castle.  In 2007 a bag containing 4000 coins dating from the middle ages was dug up in the castle.

Coming into Eichstatt is the Willibaldsburg.  Around 1355 the Prince Bishop of Eichstatt wanted to have a fortified castle for protection.  In 1725 they built a residence in the town and moved out of the castle mostly.  Today it's a Jurassic museum.

This is the fountain in front of the Residence

And the guard station at the entrance to the Residence.

At the village of Pfunz there is another Roman ruins "Romerkastell Vetoniana".  Unfortuanately it was up a steep hill so we didn't go to it.  But there at the river crossing there was a roman bridge which we had to cross.

It was clouding up and threatening rain so we stopped in the village of Arnsburg.  The town has the usual castle ruins on the stone outcrop.  We called ahead to reserve a room at the schloss hotel not knowing that it would have been a hell of a climb to the place. Luckily they were on vacation.  We ended up at nice gestehaus in the village.  It did rain later that night.