BURG HOHENZOLLERN 11/12/11

Many of our fun weekends have a "car activity" for Dale and then we sightsee in the area. The weekend of 11/12 started with a drive south to see a Porsche specialty shop, Ruf, that modifies or offers its own specialized Porsche... Dale knew of it from the States:) We had an interesting tour of the workshop and I have found myself enjoying these "car activities":) Then we spent a nite at a spa town, Bad Worishofen, before driving toward Stuttgart to see Burg Hohenzollern. On the way we stopped at a church (Zweifalten, 1700s) that was, as always, very special to see:) The castle was rebuilt in the 1880's and is the ancestral home of the counts of Zollern of which one branch became Margraves of Ansbach, then prince-electors of Brandenburg. In 1618 they suceeded to the Duchy of Prussia which became the kingdom of Prussia. A Hohenzollern, Wilhelm I, became head of the German Empire in 1871. Military defeat in WWI ended the Hohenzollern dynasty on 11/9/18 when Kaiser Wilhem II abdicated. The castle, like Neuschwanstein, looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale:) It is still privately owned by 3 different branches of the Hohenzollern family!