Sept 12 2014 Prichsenstadt to Dettelbach   We woke up in the morning and it was raining hard.  I talked J into staying another night and not being stupid enough to start riding in a hard rain. Unfortunately the hotel was booked for the night so out into the rain we went.   Off to Wiesentheid where we saw the Grafen von Schonboon castle and rode thru the current gardens.   In the 1600's the gardens were in the baroque style but in the 1800' the plowed it all up and made it more park like   Then to Ruedenhausen and on to Castell.   The Counts of Castell have some the largest vineyards in Germany and own one of the biggest banks.   The back of the castle is a wine shop.  We rode on thru the vineyards in a good rainstorm to the village of Iphofen.  It has some beautiful gates and towers.  It is the home to a very large Knauf factory and Knauf has a museum there that had a show on witches.  J wanted to see it.  She had a witch in her family.  But we were soaking wet and the museum wanted us to remove our rainclothes and not drip on everything.  We decided to go on to Mainbernheim, which as a beautiful village with a largely intact outer wall.  J said there was a lebkuchen baker there and she wanted some but we couldn't find it.  Mainbernheim is also the home of Beren Schmidt,  maker of gummy bears.  We want to come back to Mainbernheim and Iphofen and spend more time in each village.
We rode on to Dettelbach where we had a room reserved at the Zum Engle.  After dinner we walked thru the dark deserted streets in the old town and it felt like walking in the time of Dickens without the  Fagan kids to pick your pocket.

Our Hotel Adler

Schloss Schoenborn in Wiesentheid.  Wiesentheid had their own witch problem and had some trails in 1615.

Marien Saeule

Schloss Rudenhausen

The schloss Castell with the Schlosspark in the foreground

Schloss Castell.  The head Castell built this castle because the one on the hill wasn't comfortable enough for his family to live in.  

The village of Castell on our way out

The outer gate at Iphofen

The inner gate at Iphofen.  There was moat between the outer gate and the inner gate along with a drawbridge.

The hole above the inner gate was to throw hot pitch down on the attackers

Iphofen Marketplatz

Leaving Iphofen by another gate

Main street in Mainbernheim

Part of the wall around Mainbernheim

Wall and towers around Mainbernheim