Sparrenburg Castle

Sometime in the thirteenth century, Sparrenburg Castle was built to watch over the trade route through Bielefeld. It also held the mighty coffers; safe passage required a toll, and all that money had to be kept somewhere.

It's not pertinent to the tour, but I liked these plants.

Foundations of the old armory buildings. Tunnels connected the armory (and adjacent barracks) to the two nearest towers.

Naturally, it became a bit of a target.  It was attacked and besieged numerous times in its past, but it was never, in all of those engagements, captured.

Part of the wall of one of the corner towers. A tree has spread its roots across the wall; that small alcove is full of votive candles, like a tiny shrine.

A model of the castle's original structures.

I got most of my information about Sparrenburg from The Girl's cousin, who doubled as our able tour guide for the final few days of our German trip.  He got the information from the official tour guide at the castle, who conducted the tour in rapid, detailed German.  My translator did his level best to keep up, but there was a LOT of information to convey, and I eventually assured him that I was paying very close attention to where we were throughout our tour, and if he could remember later where he was when he got the tidbits he parsed out to me, I could connect them to their rightful places in my mental files.

Armory foundation and the central tower.

The Girl demonstrated tower wall thickness, and window smallness.

We climbed the tower ourselves, before the tour began, for an aerial view of the city below us.  The base of the tower, in local custom, had at one point been used as a prison, and was later converted for use (a door was installed) as a store room.

Tower stairs

The view from the top.  (click to enlarge)

Most of the castle has been rebuilt and restored from the rubble left at the end of World War II, among other destructive conflicts in the fortress's past, and the restoration continues.  Today, only the foundation remains of some of the outbuildings , but the castle's main walls show the overall size of the structure, and the central keep has been rebuilt and is used as a restaurant.

At one time, there really was a drawbridge. Entry by that entrance was strictly for the VIPs. Everyone else had to come in through an opening at the base of one of the walls, passing by five thick oak doors. Each of those doors would be barred when the castle was under attacks; vertical shafts would allow castle defenders to pour rocks, hot oil, and other unpleasantness on encroaching attackers.

Our tour took us through the grounds, and later underneath them, to tunnels which served two of the towers at the fortress's corners.  Cannon emplacements to protect from ground troops are at the lowest level, as is the bakery which fed the forces protecting the castle.  Our favorite nugget of castle knowledge: although bread was baked fresh every day, it was stored until it had begun to stale before serving it to the troops.  Fresh bread is delicious, and you want to eat a lot of it.  Stale bread is more of a chore than a pleasure, so you eat less.  Feeding the soldiers old bread meant feeding them less bread, which saved a lot of money.

Note the hole in teh ceiling directly above the fire ring. This room (well under ground, beneath one of the corner towers) is where defenders fired cannons at attacking ground troops. It is also where defending troops would stream out and attack any attacking forces which made it past the cannon fire.

Shelves in the bakery.

One of the vertical shafts above the commoners' entrance tunnel.

When we finished at the castle, we walked through town for a little while before dinner. It became a running joke that Germans love pizza, because we kept finding (and eating at) places that specialized in it.  It was a little strange for us Yankees, because when a pizza arrives at your table in Germany--even one meant for a single person--you notice two things. First, it is enormous. Second, it is never cut. You do that yourself.

Classy, totally non-threatening table lamps at an Italian restaurant in Germany.

See the common table knife beside this huge pizza?  And people think American portions are too big.