Visiting Lennep and Schloß Burg

Yesterday we took the train to Köln and did an outing with some German friends.  Our first stop was the tiny village of Lennep, where the old part of town is filled with slate covered houses.  Here is a typical one

The walls as well as the roofs are of slate, sort of serving as the aluminum siding (no maintenance) material of the day.

Someone got fancy decorating the side of this house. Is the man smiling or sticking his tongue out?

Typical crooked streets.

Here are our hosts, Jorg and Christof, in front of a cafe. (Of course we stopped for a coffee and to sample the local waffles)

Purely serendipitously we discovered that Wilhelm Röntgen was born in Lennep, and there is a small museum dedicated to his discovery of X-rays (called by the Germans Röntgenstrahlen or Röntgen rays).  Lots of interesting information, ranging from the fact that he won the first Nobel Prize for physics to showing one of the traps used to catch rats in his home.  And tons of information about later uses of x-ray technology, including the use of portable x-ray machines in field hospitals in WWI, where Marie Curie was a major proponent, going so far as to drive a truck with such a machine to battlefield sites.  Here is a model of what a field x-ray machine would have looked like:

The x-ray machine is the black box to the right of the stretcher/operating table.  Its main use was to find the bullet and schrapnel fragments so that doctors could remove them without destroying all the muscle tissue in that body part.

The museum was a delightful find, especially for four engineers/scientists.  I don't know if it is worth going out of the way to find it, but if you are ever in/near Lennep, don't miss it.

We then continued to near Sollingen, to Schloß Burg.  The name is confusing, as Schloß and Burg are synonyms, both meaning castle -- Schloß meaning more of a residence, and generally used for newer castles, and Burg being more of a fortification, which most older castles were.  I was told the name refers to it being a Schloß (residence) that has the appearance of a Burg (fortification).

First we went for a bit of a stroll in the woods around the area.  Nice wide paths, beautiful fall colors, and lots of up and down.

Here are the guys walking in front of me.

And lovely fall trees along the river.

We got to the Schloß by taking a short chairlift for the final stretch (we could have walked, but some folks were tired).  At the castle, there was a very extensive craft market going on, making for a weird contrast of old (post-medieval, but old) stuff and modern crafts -- from jewelry to chocolate to hats to wood items -- as you will see in these pictures.  First a view of the entire Schloß from a distance

There are a lot of buildings, the lowest ones are the associated village.

Inside we see a lovely stained glass window and an avenging angel partly hidden by a display of stuffed animals.

The inner keep with fair stalls.

View from one of the upper walkways.

View of part of the roofline.

Browsing through the craftfair was funny -- two gay guys, me and a typical American male.  Guess who was the odd one out? While none of us bought anything (I was particularly thinking about my very full suitcases, and these things were not bargains), it was great fun to be encouraged to browse.

We then went back to Köln for a nice dinner and took the train back to Duisburg.  Arrived home close to midnight, but we got an extra hour's sleep, as Europe is reverting to standard time this weekend.  Today is packing day, tomorrow we take the train to Frankfurt, where we stay at an airport hotel Monday night (we had to be out of our apartment at the end of the month, so we decided it made more sense to stay at the airport than to find a hotel locally) and Tuesday we fly home.  So this will probably be my last post for a while, at least untill something interesting happens in my life again.