Sunday 28 April 2013

wahrzeichnen oder main-kinzig-kreis

Along the Autobahn as I drive back and forth on my weekend commute, there are a lot of those brown and white illustrated signs denoting tourists’ attractions and there’s quite a few I pass regularly that I want H and I to explore together.
 There are few, however, as recursive as the one indicating that at the next exit, one can find the medieval Altstadt of the town of Steinheim by Hanau—seeing the same ensemble of towers and turrets from the road just behind the sign itself. I stopped to for a quick walk around the place with a nice selection of half-timbered buildings. The castle and tower were built towards the end of the 1300s by the Lords of Eppstein to oversee trade and importantly taxation of traffic along the river Main where it joins the river Kinzig.
Later used as a residence by the Archbishop of Mainz when travelling through the region and as a head-quarters of the occupying Swedish army during the Thirty Years War. Steinheim is also the gateway of the renown Hessen Apple-Wine Route (hessischen Apfelweinstraฮฒe)—which I have yet to sample.