The long return, Wed, 01 Jul 2020 | written by Jemma
Jemma and Simon at a Castle in Europe, Germany

We set off from Bastei and headed towards Köningstein Festung. We could see the fortress on top of another table mountain from the Bastei bridge and were super excited to visit. The views for the drive there were really incredible, as Saxony has quite an interesting landscape with these fissured mountains and canyons, with a winding river cutting between them. We arrived at the fort about 8pm, so found somewhere to park to make some dinner…the parking spot we found was amazing! We drove down a small lane coming off from the main road up to the castle, where there was just a field and trees between us and the castle. It was so beautiful especially in the light of the setting sun that we stayed a while after we had finished dinner, just laying on our bed with the back doors of the van open. These moments that make me love our van adventures so much!

We drove down to the town to find somewhere less conspicuous to park for the night and found an ideal carpark by the river. The plan was for us to find a pub to have an evening drink, but there didn’t seem to be any about, and before we had walked far we found a great little square, so decided to stay there and drink the beer we had in the van. This place had been made into a really lovely little space, as it had large benches with mattresses, mosaicked tables, a fountain and these weird mannequin things that were made up to look like 18th century women with big wigs and skirts. Clearly a lot of work and love had been put into making this a great space. We stayed there until it got properly dark and then off to bed.

We got up early to leave the car park before 8am, in case it’s paid, and went back to our spot for a breakfast. You’d think we got enough of the view yesterday, but this was magic all over again. Love those van moments.

We got to Köningstein Festung right after the 9am opening and there were few people as we were climbing up. The castle is massive and incredibly imposing, covering the entire plateau of the table mountain. It’s literally hectars and hectars of walled-off space, a little town almost. It has a fascinating history, from a Medieval castle, through a Renaissance palace, a political prison, a fortress, and finally a tourisit destination. The many buildings inside hosted a number of exhibitions and we ended up staying a good five hours in the complex. The views from the top were stunning, too!