Maus Castle

Last year I had the opportunity to take a Viking River Cruise down the Rhine River. Recently I have been sharing pictures and stories of the many castles that we saw as part of the Upper Middle Rhine Gorge. When I last left off, we were just a kilometer away from our next castle on this part of the Rhine, Maus Castle.

As we came upon the village of Wellmich, we spotted the castle on the rocky outcropping above.

We were told that this medieval castle even has a moat! It is carved deep into the rocky outcropping where the castle sits. That must have been an awfully hard job for someone!

The gray clouds provided such an eerie backdrop. While we were here, the clouds constantly changed, as you will see in my pictures. One minute the sky would be bright blue and the next it would be covered with stormy looking clouds. Luckily, we never had any rain while we were enjoying the view from the upper deck of our ship.

The church is St. Martin Catholic Church, which dates to the fourteenth century, the same time as the castle.

Maus Castle dates to 1353. It was finally completed in 1388 and was originally called Thurnberg.

It was built by Archbishop Balduin. Around 1370 the Counts of Katzenelnbogen decided to build a castle on an adjoining mountain.

Soon it became rumored that the those in Katzenelnbogen Castle and Thurenberg Castle were spying on each other constantly, like a cat and mouse.

And then the castles became known as Katz (shortened for cat) and Maus (mouse) and that is how they are known today. Soon we would be sailing by Katz Castle.

But for now, we were enjoying Burg Maus, which is another way to refer to the castle.  I think the clouds were a perfect backdrop for pictures.

For several centuries the castle was lived in but eventually the castle fell into disrepair and was sold at an auction in 1806 as a semi ruin according the castle website.

Thank goodness it was purchased and restored!  Now it is privately owned but our Viking Guide told us that they often host weddings and family gatherings there now.

That probably would be a really neat place to get married.  And Wellmich looks like a cute little village to explore.  Notice, they also have a ship’s mast and park area on their stretch of the Rhine.

You can barely see them in the picture above, but there were geese all along the greenway.

You can see them a little better here.  And you can also see some motorcyclists enjoying a ride along the Rhine.

And there are wineries, too!

See what I mean about the clouds?  Now blue sky was starting to show through.  It really was a beautiful spring day.

 

As we came closer to the castle, the clouds started to open up.  You can see the wall of the moat.  I still cannot imagine having to make that.  Imagine climbing all the way up the mountain, climbing over the outer wall and then having to cross a moat.  When this castle was built it was said to have all the latest and greatest defensive tools of it’s time.

 

It looked like there were a lot of vacation homes in Wellmich. Lots of windows facing the River, lots of balconies to enjoy the scenery.  I could just be imagining, too, but that is what it looked like to me.

I don’t think there was a big industry in Wellmich, except tourism and wine making.

But we were moving on, moving on to our next castle.  Saying good bye to Burg Maus.

But not without first passing this adorable half timber cottage.

This is where I would want to stay while I was visiting Wellmich.

They even have a swing already set up under the wisteria arbor.  All ready to take in the aroma of lilacs blooming at the other end of the garden.  Such a cute little cottage tucked into the mountain.

Good bye Maus Castle!

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This is not a sponsored post.  
This is my experience from my trip with Viking River Cruises. 

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