#10 on my list of Top Ten Castles in Europe: Gebrochene Gutenstein

Gebrochen Gutenstein dates back to the 1300s.

There are zillions of castles in Europe. They’re literally laying around all over the place. Europeans take them for granted the way we in Nova Scotia take miles and miles of empty coastline for granted.

Number 10 on my list of favourite castles is a ruins in the hills, a forgotten pile of rocks.

I literally stumbled on Gebrochen Gutenstein (Broken Goodstone) while on assignment in southern Germany.

I was writing for the German army for a couple weeks in Sigmaringen (pop. 15,000). This little town lies on the banks of the Danube River, in the limestone hills to the south of the Black Forest, in a wild and wooded area known as the Schwabish Alps.

I didn’t need to leave Sigmaringen to go castle hunting. Schloss Sigmaringen towers over the river valley from atop a steep-sided projection of chalk right in the middle of town. The orginal castle was built on this obvious site in the Middle Ages starting in the early 1100s. Subsequent owners added to the castle over the centuries – with final renovations and additions in the late 1800s and early 1900s making for an eclectic combination of Romantic, Gothic and Renaissance styles.

A gorgeous piece of architecture, but what I wanted was adventure. I rented a bike from our friendly hosts at the Fürstenhof Hotel and rode west.

Schloß Sigmaringen towers over the town and the Danube River.

I headed downstream on paved bike paths along the banks of the Danube, cruising by grain fields, through tiny villages for a few k until the bike path petered out in a gravel parking lot – the parking lot for the “Princely Parks of Inzigkofen”.

I climbed a bit on steep cliffs directly over the Danube with flotilla after flotilla of canoers paddling beneath me. The day turned wet and, when the skies suddenly opened in a warm downpour, I hid for a while in a limestone cave and then later took shelter under the “Devil’s Bridge”.

Both sides of the road were lined with trails leading up into the cliffs and I explored them all, racking up a little over a kilometre in vertical, and fully covering myself and the bike in mud.

Playing on cliffs above the Danube just west of Sigmaringen

To be honest I wasn’t wandering completely aimlessly: I had a hand-drawn map with X’s marking a dozen geocaches; I almost decided against “Gebrochen Gutenstein” because it’s a little hard to get to from the bike path – it’s on the wrong side of the highway and you can’t just cross over the road. You have to instead bike for a couple k on the narrow winding shoulderless pavement with cars and trucks whizzing by.

I gratefully pulled into the rest place on the L277 and began to regret the whole detour. Rest places in Germany are not pretty spots – the only people who stop in these places are people who cant drive any further – people who have an urgent task to take care of – and when they discover there are no toilets, they rush off behind a tree.

My first indication I might be seeing a castle ruins

The first indication of a castle ruin came from a little wooden sign with a brief history of Gebrochen Gutenstein – most of it was gobbedlygook and I really only learned from the sign that a castle was built near here in the 13th century.

My GPS indicated the geocache was uphill, almost directly overhead but there was no clear trailhead – just two or three muddy unofficial-looking paths leading down through the ditch and into the scrubby brush – more like toilet trails than hiking trails.

I followed the most promising of them and sure enough it soon headed up hill more or less in agreement with my GPS. Naturally though the cliffs and trees blocked the satellite signal for my GPS and there was nothing to do but head up and hope for the best.

The trail to Gebrochen Gutenstein

The trail, steep in parts and constantly switching back, was only about 30 cm wide, but thanks to the white limestone gravel, easy to follow and to walk on.

The strenuous trail pushed the highway and yucky rest area from my mind. Soon I was looking out over the Danube River Valley with tendrils of mist, thanks to the sun-showers, rising from the fields and riverbanks below.

After maybe 15 minute of climbing, the trail turned up a narrow gulley between two walls of smooth white limestone. I kept climbing another 200m or so until I finally reached the top of the trail. A thick forest barred the way in front of me. I looked left and right but there was no sign of a castle or even ruins.

Only when I turned right round to look down into the valley did I realize the castle was behind me, on top of an outcropping of limestone.

The ruins were breath-taking: drab, weathered white limestone contrasting against new spring green with mists curling around the whole scene.

Lost in the mists above the banks of the Danube

and then my imagination began to spin. the walls have been balancing up there for 700 years. this was a different more dangerous world back then and this spot high above the river provided some safety.

i thought of all the work it must have been to build the place and tried to imagine the lives of the people who lived and laughed and toiled in there.

i think part of the allure of Gebrochen Gutenstein for me is that you can walk right under it, run your hands along the old walls, but without a rope and some sharp climbing skills, you can’t get into the castle.

Ive included this simple pile of rocks in my list of Top Ten European Castles to represent the zillions of fabulous ruins that dot the landscape over here, the ones you’ve never heard of. This spot wasnt mentioned in any of the tourist info I read or even recommended to me by any of the locals I spoke to.

Gebrochen Gutenstein is easy to miss among the limestone cliffs

And yet it was a highlight for sure of my visit to Sigmaringen. The site is so fantastic; below the romantic secretive Danube, to either side the limestone cliffs at once hard and unyielding while also visibly, steadily eroding away and all around the dark quiet forest.

It confirmed for me that my way of exploring Europe is the right one for me: no plans, no major cities, just following my nose (and my GPS), up hill and downstream, taking a real good slow look round on the road less travellled.

Sure I get muddy and sweaty, but that makes the bratwurst and beers taste all the better; sure I often get “lost”, but that’s when I find make the most interesting discoveries.

(The next installment in this series will be a bit shorter, mostly because it’s about a castle I havent been to yet but dearly want to see some day… on France’s Atlantic coast.)

12 fotos of Gebrochen Gutenstein and surroundings on flickr