Elbsandsteingebirge: Königstein and Bastei

Today, two of the main attractions in the Elbsandsteingebirge were on the program. We specifically chose Monday instead of the weekend as it tends to be very crowded during weekends.

First, we went to Königstein. We parked in the village and walked up to the fortress.

Since we were at Königstein before 9 o'clock, we didn't have to line up for tickets and could go directly into the fortress.

Unfortunately, it was still drizzling and we first visited the houses that were already open.

In the Magdalenenburg, we saw large wine barrels in the cellar. However, there used to be three even larger barrels here one after another.

Unfortunately, these were not very durable and therefore had to be rebuilt repeatedly. Augustus the Strong had a wine barrel built to show off in front of his guests, which held 238,600 liters. It was filled twice before it broke...

Before visiting the exhibition on the history of the castle, which only opened at 10 o'clock, we enjoyed the view from the fortress wall for a while. There were hardly any people in the fortress yet.

When we left the museum, the sky had cleared up even more, but now it was getting busier on the premises.

We walked around the large complex along the outer wall and enjoyed the view of the surroundings.

The fortress wall is a total of 1.7 km long. The 'Friedrichsburg', which was inserted into the wall as a lookout point and building for the king's festivities, was particularly beautiful.

It is said that a page of Johann Georg II. once fell asleep on a windowsill of Friedrichsburg after looking too deeply into the glass. To amuse the court, the king had him tied up and then awakened with trumpets...

There were various smaller exhibitions in the numerous different buildings that were gradually built on the fortress grounds.

After exploring the entire fortress complex, we first drove back to our vacation rental. We had forgotten our hiking map and used the return trip for a lunch break.

Then we set off again and drove to Rathen. The town is divided by the Elbe and we took a ferry to the side where the famous 'Bastei' is located.

We hiked up the mountain of the Bastei on foot. Along the way, we heard many foreign languages, some Saxon, and very little German. Summer vacation in Poland and the Czech Republic had already begun.

Although it was later in the day and week, there were still many tourists around and we were glad we didn't do this excursion on Sunday.

The Neurathen Rock Castle, first mentioned in 1261, has its own entrance along the way. On iron walkways, you can explore the former castle built into the rock.

From there, there was also a beautiful view of the Bastei Bridge, which was built in 1851 and is 76 meters long.

We continued on to the Bastei, which is famous for its view. Indeed, we found the viewpoints along the way and those facing the rocky landscape to be equally beautiful.

In the 'Schwedenlöcher', the peasant families hid during the 30 Years' War.

The path winds through the narrow gorge, which contains numerous hiding places. However, today you are only allowed to stay on the designated path of the protected landscape area.

We walked back to the town of Rathen along the Grünbach.