From Castles to Caves!

What an amazing day today!! We were on the road by about 9, and went to pick up Francisco. We then headed to the city of Riedenburg, where there lies the Schloß Rosenburg (a 12th century castle built by a minstrel knight). In this amazing place there is a Falkonry, where there many birds of prey, such as falcons, eagles, vultures, owls, and other indigenous birds of prey. We arrived early and had time to walk through the whole estate and took pictures of all of the beautiful birds. We then situated ourselves at a place where Uli guaranteed that we would have a great view of the show. They performed an absolutely breathtaking flying show, where these birds LITERALLY skimmed over the tops of our heads as they swooped towards their awaiting handlers. Again, and again birds were swooping in and out, and we were ducking left and right. The photos you see here are ACTUAL!!! No zoom was used!!! Just incredible! (And I must give credit where credit is due... Francisco took the 2 amazing pictures of the birds in flight... I kept ducking and missing the shot! lol) We then went into a quaint little village for lunch, where we sat drausen (outside) and had brats and saurkraut and beer... then off to another castle. This time, the Burg Prunn in Altmühltal. Though not extremely large, this one mirrored that of a medieval knight's castle. There was furniture, wall hangings, and many paintings in each room. We walked through with a guided tour. Our tour leader spoke in German, but we had a paper that had all the main points in English. From the kitchen to the torture room to the guardsmans room, it was so very interesting. Once done there, we were off to the bat cave! For real! Our last stop was Schulerloch, which was a cold (9 degrees Celcius), damp, dark, flat out cave! We first had to walk about a 100 meters straight up the side of a mountain to get to where the caves entrance was. And YES, I was wearing my flip flops... Once inside, we were on a tour, but the guide spoke only German, so Francisco and I were both lost. But we looked at everything. There were stalagtites, and stalagmites, and pools of limestone water inside. No, we didn't see any bats, I guess they are away until about October. Too bad. They have concerts in this cave, and I guess Sting has actually performed there! There is some fancy candlelight dinner in the cave tonight for a huge party of people... that would definitely make for some interesting conversation! We could take no pictures while we were there so... It is now about 4:30 and we are just getting home. We have been invited to a BBQ at Linda and Dennis' (one of Uli's collegue's house). We arrived around 7 to a wonderful home surrounded by forest, flowers, and grass. They had totally remodeled the home since moving in, and the results were fabulous! Linda immediately took on the roll of bartender, and Dennis hit the coals to grill. In no time we were sitting down to a huge, delicious meal. An appetizer of tomato/basil/mozerella (I forget what that's called), 3 or 4 different kinds of meat, an enormous green salad, and baked potatoes with a creamy sauce. We all went back for seconds, or thirds. We then sat around and talked, or went to watch the USA soccer team tie England. It was a good game. It was after 12:30 before we finally took our leave, but Linda and Dennis were so hospitable, ALWAYS ensuring we had something to either eat or drink in front of us at all times! We were SO full, I think they just rolled all of us down the hill to our car by the end of the night! Excellent time, and more new friends...