Alcazaba de Almeria - fortress of Southern Spain

Castles' gardens

Almeria was one of the cities we visited on our first trip together in march of 2014. Here we spend just half a day, as it was only a stop on our trail. We asked in the tourist office for one the most interesting thing to see in Almeria and the assistant, without any doubts, told: Alcazaba. So there we went.

A brief story:

Alcazaba de Almeria is a huge fortress (one of the biggest in Andalusia). It was built in 955 and later expanded in 1487. The fortress is equipped with the high defense walls and several towers. Moreover, on the courtyard of the castle, there are placed wells and tanks, in which the water has been stored. Although, the town in situated in very warm and dry climate, thanks to this water the castle has magnificent gardens. Furthermore, such a water storage gave possibility of survival for 20 000 people during sieges in the past. For military purposes it was used till XXth century.

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Loket - following the Goethe's trail

View on the Loket town

Loket - a biref story

The town's history began in XIIth century, when the Loket castle was built. It was used as a boarder fortress. Later on the city next to the castle was developed (XIIIth century). In Loket the Holy Roman Emperor - Charles IV lived (the one who discovered hot springs in Karlovy Vary). Therefore, the town gained the 'royal city' status. By the end of the XVth century Loket was one of the best fortified cities in Central Europe. It was destroyed during the Thirty Years' War and after this it never came back to its previous splendor. Thanks to this lot of monuments preserved in unchanged manner till this day. Nowadays, the town only has around 3 000 inhabitants.

Beutifully located town between mountainsin a river bend

Follow me through the town's streets

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Romantic Road: Rothenburg ob der Tauber - taken out of the Middle Ages

Most beautiful scene in the town

Rothenburg od der Tauber is our next stop on the Romantic Road (マンチック街道) though Bavaria and in our opinion is one of the bast places on this tail, because...

Town walls:

It is one of the three German cities which are still fully surrounded by medieval city walls. The other two are Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen, also in Bavaria and  they also belongs to the Romantic Road.

The gates to the city are not changed for at least 600 years. Thus they are normally a bit thin as for today's traffic and the cars have to wait for each other to drive through. Moreover, you can meet there many carriages. All entrances to the city consist not only from a gate but also from a tower, which differs from one to another:

Moreover, the walls were surrounded by the moat, which past presence can be observed in few places... 

Bridge for pedestrians over the old moat

 After we went into the town of Rothenburg od der Tauber, we were a little bit surprised that the city walls can be fully accessed by the tourists. So, let's follow me...

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Herzogenaurach - the motherland of sport shoes

What this ball is doing here?
/photo from 2015

If you are a big fans of sport (as we are), and you know brand like ADIDAS and PUMA you have to read this post! Then, the answer for question "What this ball is doing here?" will be easy to answer :)

Enjoy!

Between two towers

Herzogenaurach is a small, old town with ca. 20 000 inhabitants. It is located near Furth, Erlangen and Nurnberg, over a river Aurach in Bavaria, Germany. Location in vicinity of such well known cities makes it for most of the people unnoticeable. However, this is the place where lot of people want to live and work. The old town can be walked through in 5 minutes, but the architecture of the town makes this walk very pleasant. While entering the town from the East side you will pass by the overgrowth with ivy 13th century Fehn Tower (below on the right), which first marks the boundary of medieval inner city and second was used as a prison. From the other side the town is "protected" by Lookout Tower, built in 14th century (below on the left).

The Fehn Tower has 28 meters height, and you can visit it with a tour guide. 

The Lookout Tower was the part of the inner city wall and on the main wall of the Lookout Tower you can find an old coat of arms of Herzogenaurach.
Between two towers (which are separated by around 200 meters), you find the most beautiful buildings of Herzogenaurach.

An old coat of arms of Herzogenaurach on Lookout Tower

A newest version of coat of arms of Herzogenaurach on Fehn Tower

All buildings in this town comes from middle ages, which makes the climate of the town very nice. Some of them still have unique sign referring to the "craftsman time".

 On the North side of an old town there is located a church St. Magdalena (below) and a small "castle", which is now used as town hall. This is the mix of the roman style building from 13th century and gothic nave. On a main square there is located an old town hall (Altes Rathaus), in which now you can find a restaurant (below on the left).

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Salamanca - the town made of gold stones

Main Square - Plaza Mayor

During our way to Portugal we decided to stop in Salamanca. The sightseeing was short, as it was planned only as the break in our journey.

Plaza Mayor

First of all the Main Square of Salamanca (Plaza Mayor) is one of the most magnificent squares in entire Spain. It was built in 1755 in the Baroque style. The square is enormous compared to most of the squares we've been to. You can find there plenty of restaurants and souvenir shops.

Main Square - Plaza Mayor

Casa de las Conchas

This building is famous, because its facade is decorated with more than 300 scallop shells. Thus, it is called House of Shells (Casa de las Conchas). Its also one of the best examples of 15th century civic Gothic with a significant Italian Renaissance influence. The shells comes from a sing of Order of Santiago, to which the first owner of this building belonged. 

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Karlovy Vary - where the hot water springs

Main geyser on a street in Karlovy Vary

A brief story:

Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad, Carlsbad, カルロヴィ・ヴァリ) is located in western Czech Republic. It was founded in 14th century after the accidental discovery of the hot springs by the king Charles IV during his hunting in the region (the emperor at this time lived in nearby castle Loket). The town is located along the river Teplá, which from Czech means hot, as the water from springs finally always falls into this river and makes it a bit hotter than expected.

River Teplá in Karlovy Vary

The golden age of the town falls on the XVIII - XIX century, from when most of the buildings comes from. These times tourists started to visit the town and the springs, as the transportation became easier. From the second half of the XIX century rich clientele started determining the character of the society in Karlovy Vary. During this time many political and diplomatic negotiations took place in this town.

Living in a spa.

In the town there are 13 hot main mineral springs, which differs from each other by temperature and amount of minerals.  There are also about 300 smaller springs. The hottest spring is called Vřídlo, which temperature is equal 73 degrees Celsius and it rises from the depth of 2000-3000 meters. The temperature of other springs varies between 30 and 70 degrees. The water from the springs can cure metabolic disorders and/or be used for inhalations.  

Vřídlo hot spring

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Hohenzollern castle - perfectly designed fortress

The Hohenzollern castle is beautifully placed on a peak of the Hohenzollern mountain (called also Zollerberg or shorter Zollern) between two towns: Bisingen and Hechingen. It can be seen even from tens of kilometers, as it rises above a vast plain. 

A brief story:

Such located hill was in the past really good lookout place. So it was chosen for perfect place to built a castle very early: the first castle was built there somewhere in XI century. From very beginning it was a headquarters of Hohenzollern family. The first castle survived till 1423, when after year-long battle it was completely destroyed. It didn't take long to built the second castle, which raised in next 30 years. Due to many wars and changes of occupiers, castle felt into ruin (beginning of XIX century). As previously, the castle was built again:) This time, then thanks to the Fiedrich Wilhelm IV king of Prussia, who wanted to to see the castle of his predecessors in stately way. And it's how it looks today (we just hope that nobody will destroy it again):

Entering the castle.

After we climbed through the last 1/3 of the hill, we saw the beautiful gate... Unfortunately, the are no good views on the castle from it's surroundings:(  ...as it turned out it was not a single gate...

The entrance to the castle for us was similar to multi-level city or gallery parkings where you have to drive in spiral to reach the next levels. We passed two tunnels and three gates also including bascule bridge. Inside the way for 'cars', horses, groups of people etc. was smaller, also round, staircase.

Finally the last gate (above on the left)... and here we are! Lets enter the courtyard.

Castles inner courtyard is rather small surrounded by buildings, there is also outer courtyard with gardens around the castle, from which you can enjoy really nice views. 

View on the courtyard from castle's rooms

Sightseeing.

The castle can be easily accessed by cars. In a two thirds of a mountain there are located car parks (2 euro for entrance) which are located behind the watchtower and just next to the castle's office. As in Neuschwanstein to access the castle you have to buy tickets there. The tours are available in German and sometimes in English, so if you want to participate in an English tour you should book it before. As we didn't know it before and there were participated in German language tour:) The tour costs 10 euro per students and 1 or 2 euro more per an adult. All important information you will find on the official website of the castle. 

Unfortunately, as always in such monuments we could not take any pictures inside:(

Tip: if you just want to walk around the castle and see the courtyard, come after opening hours. Then, maybe you have no chance to use of the restaurant or to have a guided tour through the castle's rooms but you can access courtyard for free, which normally costs 7 euro per an adult. Which is a great benefit:)

The entrance to the castles rooms leads through the room, which painted walls shows the Hohenzollern family tree. During sightseeing of this hall (below on the right), the guide told us about medieval notation of "4", which we already shared with you in our previous post about Fussen.

In the castle there is secret path under the buildings connecting two: outer and inner courtyards (above on the left). In the castle's mountain there are many, many more tunnels and still some of them haven't been explored, so nobody know where they lead. They are also associated with a legend about White Lady, who was predicting the death of members of the Hohenzollern family. The legend is available here.

Pictures are allowed to be taken in two churches: evangelic (above on the right) and catholic (above on the left). Two churches are present because of the reformation and some members of the family represents one part of the religion and some others. Above there are photos from the catholic chapel. 

That's all for today. See you next time:)

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DIY - catch it, cook it, eat it: Mussels

Have you ever prepared seafood from a very beginning?

Ordinarily, people goes to shop and it's how it starts. But there are still some kind of food you can find in natural environment and we are not talking about fruits or vegetables:)
When you spent your summer vacation near the see, this can interest you for two reasons: activity and improving your cooking skills. 

Ready for recipe?

Start in the place similar to this: 

Ocean rocks during outflow

During outflow ocean reveals its bottom, where live many organisms. Mostly near the beaches they are not so big, because people kills them during accessing the water....:< But, when the outflow is really big or you are far away from crowded places you can find much bigger inhabitants of the sea. It is the same as this you can find in a shops but you just have to catch them. Mussels normally live attached to the rocks and to separate them you can use normal knife. Moreover, some of them drift in the water, because they were separated by strong flow during storm - you can also collect them, which is even easier. 

Colony of mussels on the rock

We advise you to collect only a big examples, because amount of work with small ones is incomparable with an amount of food from them. It is good to transport them in the bowl with ocean's water to keep them alive and fresh till the end...

Cleaning of mussels

Before cooking you have to thoroughly clean them. They grow in the sea attached to one place so other organisms as algae etc. can settle on them. With a knife you can clean them from other thrashes, then rinse them under cold tap water.  

Cleaned mussels

Before making a dish, you have to kill them. It seems brutal but it's not, either way all seafood you buy in shop have already been killed. To do so, you have to simply boil them, till all of them will open.

Boiling mussels

Here is my recipe for cooking them:

Ingredients:

• 1 med-sized onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 300 g of seafood
• 1 small pepper or 1 chili
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 glass of a white wine (most preferable port wine)
• Herbes de Provence
• olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Procedure:

Fry onion and garlic on a pan (using olive oil) till gold. Add chili/pepper and fry a bit, put on the pan chopped tomatoes. Add salt, pepper, minced pepper and Herbes de Provence (I used only some of them: oregano and rosmarin). When tomatoes are done, put the seafood. After 5 mins pour it with the white wine and lemon juice. Cook it for next 5 mins. Serve with rice or chips.   

Mussels on a plate

If you are not on the sea cost, you can do this food also, just buy some frozen seafood and do it same way. It always turns out good.

Mixture of frozen seafood

Serving suggestion

Bon Appetit!

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