Schloss Kufstein mit Freunden

The town of Kufstein viewed from the Schloss

Soledad is my class mate and she is from Argentina.  Her boyfriend, Christoph is Deutsch and they live just around the corner.  Today they invited us to come with them on a short trip to Schloss Kufstein.  They have a car.  Having friends with their own car is a good thing.  I had forgotten just how much freedom the common old auto-mobile can give a person.  München is a great city but sometimes it is really nice to head further a field.

Sole and Christoph picked us up at the leisurely time of 11am and we headed into the Alps.  Christoph took us the scenic route out of München, hampered by weekend traffic and some major road works.  However it wasn't too long before we were screaming down the E45 heading to Austria.  The E45 is road I have travelled many times now as it leads to Austria and Italy.

The day was schön.  Schön is the third most important word in the German vocabulary, coming third to genau and gerne.  I don't know what any of them mean but you can hold a whole conversation with any German national with just these three words.  If a random German stranger engages you in conversation and you want to annoy them just nod and say genau at any opportunity.  When they finally finish look them in the eye, shrug and say "Ich spreche kein Deutsch" and walk away.

In the grounds researching the history

Any way we found das Schloss in the centre of town right where it was meant to be.  It was an interesting old building with the usual defensive measures.  I was struck by how long the entrance way was.  Until recently there was only one way into the castle and this was by a long covered path that zig zagged up the cliffs.  Every 10m there was a spot where heavy timbers could be dropped into slots carved into the walls thus forming an impromptu wall. The other thing of note was the well had a winch that was operated by a running wheel.  Just like the ones used by hamsters looking to shed those unwanted kilos only much bigger. Big enough for a couple of blokes to stand in and operate.