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There is something magical about a castle. The courtyard, the masonry, the towers…they are amazing. What kid wouldn’t be willing to trade in a night at a hotel to sleep in one?
The Rhine River Valley in Germany is simply full of castles. Literally there were so many castles that by the end of our time there, we could hardly get the kids to look out the window to check out a new one. We’re talking over 60 castles.
Photo source, via Creative Commons License.
While we were there soaking in the massive castle overload, we got the amazing opportunity to sleep in one of these castles.
And it was SUPER CHEAP
For all 6 of us, we paid under 70 Euro!!
The Burg Stahleck Castle was built in the 12th century and sits atop a hill overlooking the beautiful Rhine River. The view is stunning. In recent years it has been renovated to become a hostel. No, not the smelly backpacker sharing a dorm room with 20 people kind of hostel, but a family hostel. Here families can get rooms with bunks and private bathrooms, giving you all the privacy and more space than a traditional European hotel (ours had 8 beds in it). However, unlike a hotel room, we didn’t feel like we had to constantly be on guard to shhh the kids to avoid disturbing the neighbors. Because the neighbors had their own kids too. It was a much welcome reprieve from the weeks we would spend in hotels on that trip! Before we knew it, there was a mini pack of kids running around all pretending to be knights with their wooden souvenir swords. It was perfect. We explored all over the hallways and up the turret and had a magical nights sleep behind it’s stone walls.
Sure you can find many castles to stay where you will be wined and dined and sleep on a plush bed with ornate wood carvings. It will be magical, and you’ll pay a pretty penny for that experience. However for the rest of us (especially with kids), Burg Stahleck is where you can find us!
Go here to book it (and be prepared to visit Google Translate a lot, unless you read German).
Truth: Ever have something amazing happen to you and although you have the finest intentions of telling the world about it, you just forget? Well, here’s one that falls into that category on my end. I guess that somewhere between homeschooling, raising 4 (very loud and dirty) kids, and traveling like a crazy woman, I dropped the ball 🙂 This was part of our grand European adventure last summer.
We didn’t get any special deal for writing this, it’s just too cool not to tell you about!
I am so curious as to how you home school. It is something I am drawn to but I don’t know a lot about it. It seems like a person could spend hours researching homeschooling websites/programs/books and still come out confused {ahem}! Please share! Also, what does your husband do for a living that makes traveling so feasible?!
Sara, you are opening up a can of worms with those questions (things I could talk for hours about). Here’s the short answers: We live in the Middle East and for expats here, we are given travel allowances (that cover travel back to the US yearly) and my husband gets 30 days off + 2 week long national holidays. Yes, it’s a ton of time off. That plus what a great spot we’re in the literally jump to Africa, Asia, and Europe have made our world travel much more possible (especially since we have to pay for 6 of us).
Also, homeschool is something that I’m still really new to. We’ve been doing it just this year and I’m still learning a ton. My kids are in grade 2 and kindergarten. We focus most of our time on reading, writing and math and then to science, art, and history a couple times a week. We tie a lot of our studies into the places that we are traveling to help the kids make a greater connection to the places that we are going. We follow a lot of the suggested materials that are presented in “A Well Trained Mind”
I’ve stayed there too! And LOVED it. Best memory from my Europe tour (at least best night of sleep I got! ;)) Hope to take my kids back there someday too 🙂 What awesome adventures!