Hohenzollern Castle

Every now and then a Princess needs to visit a castle. We’ve been here in Stuttgart for a year-and-a-half now and it’s been right at a year since we last visited a still-in-tact castle.

Hohenzollern Castle is very close to Stuttgart and is a stunning piece of architecture. While not the original castle on the site it is still magnificent. We were given the royal treatment when we arrived and directed to a section of parking for mini-busses. The castle offers a bus that packs people in as tightly as absolutely possible to make the trip up the mountain but we are tough and mostly in shape so we decided to take the walking path. What we did not know at the start was that the walking path had a lot of stairs. It was incredibly steep, and had we had Anna in a backpack carrier we would have been just fine. (Okay, fine is a stretch. We would have still been huffing and puffing, but less exhausted once we reached the top.)

Once at the top, you join the street, and then follow the castle’s driveway to get inside. It is such a steep mountain that the designer created an elaborate figure-eight driveway. On our way back down a very fancy car carrying a wedding party was entering and in order for them to get through this archway I had  to go back through, stop people who were walking down and wave the driver on through. It was very narrow and with a steady stream of visitors it would have taken them all day to get through. 

Anna believes there’s some connection to castles, being a princess, and ballet, so when she to the top, (NOT exhausted, mind you) she did a few moves.

The views are simply stunning. They say that on a clear day you can see the TV tower in Stuttgart. We plan to take my family to this castle when the come and I’ll be looking for it! (Dad, bring your binoculars!)

On the way back down the driveway I snapped a few pictures. This was the least blurry of them but I still wanted to post it. 

Our visit to Hohenzollern castle was lovely and we can’t wait to show it to Mason and Madison!!