Oct. 14, 2010

Today was my little brothers birthday! He turned 12! (For the fifth year in a row) I can’t believe that I wasn’t there to see it happen again. Sorry Alex, but we went to a castle. The Castle Wartburg is built in three sections that show everyone the time eras that royalty added on and on. The earliest buildings were built in 1067. The actual building of the castle began in 1156 and was finished around 1172. King Ludwig IV and his queen Elizabeth lived there in 1221-1227. The first section was made form sandstone and the middle out of brick. Both were built in the Romanesque style with columns in every window. The newest section of the castle was done in the half timbered style. It was here that Martin Luther would hide in safety and translate the New Testament from Greek into German over a span of a year. The castle originally consisted of 200 columns and was artistically crafted. Today it is one of the most preserved secular buildings of the Romanesque era on this side of the Alps (says the nifty English guide we were given that tells us about the castle). What an amazing site!