Day 41 (July 19th): Solingen

Woke up and went to our usual corner bakery for breakfast and brought the kids back their food. Since we have adopted Tuesday and Thursday as road trip days, today we were hitting the road. I wanted to go back to Solingen and try to see the castle this time. Now that I had a map of Solingen it was much easier to plug in accurate addresses into the Nav system. The map also identified interesting sites to visit, one of which was the tallest train bridge in Germany. I followed the Nav route to the bridge but there wasn’t parking close enough and the kids had no desire to walk. Instead, I tried following the map and take my own path. This proved to be an interesting off road adventure. I was about to give up and saw a man with his bike on the bridge and pulled over. I asked him if he spoke English and luckily enough he did. He said that I just needed to turn around and follow the path down the street near the train station. We parked in front of a house with a loud barking dog and followed a footpath along side the house. We walked for a couple of hundred feet and came upon a big slide in the middle of the forest. The kids were psyched. The base of the bridge was not far away and a path meandered down the hill. Besides the slide, there were wooden beams you could walk across, a rope obstacle course and wobbly sheep figures you can sit on. We played there for a while and then headed down the hill. At the base of the hill we were excited to see a park with a river and the bridge spanning across it. We walked down to the water and the kids took off their shoes and went in (see picture on left). The kids tried catching the little fish in the river while the ducks swam by. They were having a fun time. A little down stream we found a concession stand and bought some ice cream. Near the concession stand there were these interesting chairs. We sat down and realized that if you spun one chair the other two would spin also. I started spinning the chairs while the kids tried holding on. These chairs spun very quickly. Zach almost flew off and Hannah was hanging on for dear life. They loved them. There was another fun chair that angled back and forth (see bottom picture) while another one bounced up and down. We were there for a while and it was time to head back up the hill. We got in the car and drove towards the castle. I followed the Nav system that directed me up the mountain but we hit a dead end. The roads were very narrow and there was a group of people watching me make a u-turn and maneuver back down the mountain. We found a parking lot and grabbed lunch at a local café. Zach and I had a salami sandwich and Hannah had a tomato soup. We then bought a couple of desserts and sat outside on a park bench. To get to the castle, there was a chair lift that went to the top of the mountain. When we got near the top we saw a couple of mountain goats walking around. This was a fun ride and the kids enjoyed it a lot. The name of the castle is Schloss Burg an der Wupper that dates back to the 12th century. There was a nice view from the top and we walked around checking out the shops near the castle (see picture on right). Hannah bought a post card for her collection and we made a pit stop at the bathroom before walking back down the mountain. Instead of following the path, the kids decided to climb down sections of the small hills. We made it back to the car and ventured off to find the Balkhauser Kotten (old gristmill). It was a nice old building but nothing special. Our next destination was the Wipper Kotten. This one was much better with a working mill situated right on the river. Also, there was a little stream that flowed below the Kotten and we saw some good-sized trout in the water. We started following the walking path and all of a sudden Zach needed to do a #2. I was prepared with toilet paper in the car so I ran back and got the toilet paper. He did his business on the side of the path and we kept walking. Around the bend I took some nice pictures of the Kotten on the river. The kids were into hiking and we walked for about 1 hour. It was getting late so we went to the car and drove home arriving back around 6:30 PM. The kids had a great day.
For dinner, YH and Rajani joined us and we walked over to the MediaHafen area (renovated warehouse district). We found a nice Italian restaurant and I had a Zuppe di Pesce (fish soup) with a cold beer. Hannah had a tomato soup and Zach had a pizza (big surprise). The food was good. After dinner we walked next door and had some ice cream for dessert. We then headed over to the building with the sculptures climbing up the façade. Near the Rheinturn there is an open grass field and lots of rabbits. The kids loved this and start running after them in hopes of catching them (highly unlikely). We made it to the promenade by the Rhine and looked at the colorful lights on the rides at the festival across the river. We made it home after a solid walk and got ready for bed. It was our usual bed-time (12:00 AM) before lights out.