I’ve mentioned fairy tale castles before, but the one I visited yesterday has topped them all so far. Sprawled over a small hill which nestled into a valley ten minutes cycle from Leun is Braunfels castle. I’ll let my photos do the talking for this one, just to say that if you do happen to visit taking a tour is a must as its the only way to see the inside. Although you can’t take any photos inside you do get to slide around on the wooden floor in some gigantic house-slippers avoided crashing into some great artifacts lying around in the cavernous rooms. The family still lives in a part of the castle, but there’s a small cafe, a museum (not really worth it if you take the tour inside) and lots and lots of doorways, entrances and little old houses.

For a late breakfast I picked up some squares from Cafe Vogel. The chocolate-pistachio biscuit cake was a bit dry, but the other one was to die for, oozing with apricot jam and buttery goodness. I ate these perched in the small terraced garden in the castle grounds – imagine having this place as your garden!

At this point I wandered off on the tour – they do student discounts but it’s quite cheap anyway, they also offer the tour in English or French but you have to book in advance.

Given the number of cafes squashed around the small square in front of the castle, I decided to skip a healthy lunch and rocked straight into tea-time with a Cherry-baiser schnitt torte in the “Kleines Cafe am markt”. The coffee was meh, maybe I’ll stick to tea next time but the cake was great! The huge slice disappeared in seconds, well maybe minutes but was really tasty. Having a sneak peek at what the others around me were eating, their slices of cake looked just as good, and just as nice regarding portion size. If floral quaint delicate interiors are your thing, don’t forget to go. Even if they’re not, go anyway just for the cake.

For fear of diabetes, I cycled the 30 km home to Giessen and supplemented my diet with a giant salad for dinner. It was well worth it though!