Travelog for: Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
a miracle happened today - the sun came out!!!

In the afternoon we went to the shopping mall because Katja wanted to buy a new hiking jacket. We could not believe what we saw when we left the house - NO rain!



You have to walk only a few minutes to get to the city centre with the shopping mall from my current home. Katja showed us the water tower, visible from many places around. The city centre of Remscheid is situated on top of a hill. The water tower and the tower of the city hall, which is 48 m high, make a characteristic view.



This is one side of the city hall.



Katja will take a photo of the main side another time. Today the ice rink which was installed here since November was dismounted today, not a great view with all those piles of material.

Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
this is my first day here with fantastic weather, a great reason to take a hiking trip, so we took a long walk along the river Wupper today, in Solingen, the neighbour city. We started our trip in Balkhausen, a small hamlet in this rural area. Here we saw a lot of those typical half-timbered houses.





We also saw cattle, I don't know which sort of them.





Finally we reached river Wupper, it is flowing towards river Rhine.





We reached a hamlet with a funny name: It is called "Rüden" because of the tale of one of the formerly reigns of this region (eventually in middle ages) who met with a riding accident and was saved by his dog.







We decided to walk back. We found an old machine.



We crossed the river here.



On our way back the valley was no longer in the sunshine.

Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
when Katja came home from work we decided to take a walk - who knows how long we'd have such great weather.

We went to the municipal park first, only a few minutes to walk.



There is a pond in the park, ducks and turtles are living here.





The observatory is situated in the municipal park.



We walked to the district Hasten than.







Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
the weather is still ugly here with lots of rain. Nontheless my host Katja decided that we would take a walk. We went to a woodland area. There is a creek in the valley, usually a really narrow one.  It is carrying much more water than usual.



These rain detention basins are usually empty, now they are filled. (It is raining for about six weeks now.)



We were happy when we reached our home.



Later we watched Katja's daughter prepare a torte. Her boyfriend is celebrating his birthday today, she is going to take it to the birthday party. She made a torte with cream, chocolate cream and strawberries.



She prepared the chocolate cream with egg yolk, butter and melted chocolate.



First the layers of the torte were filled with strawberry jam, than there is a layer of whipped cream and finally the chocolate cream.





Than the torte was decorated with more cream, strawberries and chocolate hearts.



It's looking good, isn't it?



Maybe I will manage to hide in her bag, so I could also go to the birthday party and taste the torte.

Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
finally the weather changed! The following photos were taken when we went to the pet store to buy treats for the ferrets.





Bye
Muggel Rainbow

hHi Mummy,
in the afternoon we took a walk with a friend. We left the city centre and walked downhill through an allotment garden area. You can see that the city is surrounded by woodland and rural areas.





They are having lovely houses here. This one is a typical "Bergisches" house, covered with slate, with green shutters.



Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
in the morning we took a walk with Katja and two of her friends. Katja promised me that I would see Muengsten Bridge, Germany's highest railway bridge. We went into the forest where we found a rock with engraved artwork: A puddle oracle! Unfortunately a frozen oracle does not work



There is an outlook pavilion high above the valley of the river Wupper. You have a good overlook across the valley of the river Wupper with Muengsten Bridge.





There are rocks along our path, little waterfalls running down everywhere.



We went downhill than towards the river.



We found more rocks with engraved patterns, a tabletop game this time, nine men's morris.



In the meantime we crossed the river and walked back towards Muengsten Bridge. This side of the river bank is really steep, rocks and steep slopes.



We reached the leisure park underneath the bridge than. The bridge was built in early 20th century, finished in 1906 A.D. It is 107 m high, overspanning the valley of the river Wupper which is marking the border between Remscheid and the neighbour city Solingen. It is about 480 m long. There will be extended repar and restoration works in the coming years.



When the weather is good lots of kids are playing here in the shallow river, Katja told us. After six weeks with heavy rainfall the Wupper is not a shallow river any more.



Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
today we visited a medieval castle in the neighbour City Solingen, Schloss Burg, It is situated high upon a hill above the River Wupper.

We went into the courtyard and found a lovely half-timbered part of the castle.



Schloss Burg was built in 1133 by Count Adolf I von Berg on a hill above the river Wupper.That's why this region is called "Bergisches Land". Many people believe that it's name refers to the landscape with hills and valleys. (For those who do not speak German: The German word for mountain or hill is "Berg", so many people think that the name "Bergisches Land" means "land with many hills" )

About a hundred years later it was enlarged by Count Engelberg II von Berg. This is the guy on the horse in the courtyard.



In Thirty Years War (17th century) large parts of the castle were destroyed. It was rebuilt then, but it was used for industrial purposes for many years. In the end of the 19th century they began to rebuild it as it appears today.

In the castle courtyard you can find souvenir shops and shops whose owners are doing an "old" handcraft, for example handmade brushes, brooms, soap, lovely yarns and wooden knitting needles, toys like swords and helmets and much more.



The round tower was the powder tower, it was restored about two years ago.





You can overlook the valley between Remscheid and Solingen from this high point.



Here you can see the castle from a distance.



We found a "twin" of the outlook pavilion which I showed you on Sunday, it was created by the same architect.



And here is the fantastic overview



We made a side-trip to the concrete wall of a nearby drinking water dam, there are repair works taking place at the moment.



We walked back to the car through a rural hamlet clalled "Höhrath", they have many livery stables here and a sawmill.





From now on I was hiding in Katja's pocket - it was soooo cold outside.

Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
we visited Hückeswagen today, a small town in the "Oberbergisches Land", about 18 km apart from Remscheid. We went there to take a friend's daughter to a riding stable. Hückeswagen is embedded in a rural landscape.





We took a walk than around an upstream temporary dam of the large Wupper dam. It is almost completely frozen.











We also went to the the town centre of Hückeswagen, a lovely old town.



They have a castle here, the municipality is situated in it.





When we walked back to the river Wupper we saw this tiny house with the working fireman.



Of course I also said hello to the horses.







Bye
Muggel Rainbow

Hi Mummy,
today it was time to leave Remscheid. I am on my way to my next host now.



Bye
Muggel Rainbow

...the twin of Muggel Rainbow has find his way home again, updates of his trip should follow later...
His triplet is on the way to Zandy.

Hi mummy,

this week was boring. Zandy was ill and so we couldn’t do something, but we talked a lot together, so that I get to know with Zandy and the other TVs (Mirembe and Meav). She lay in bed the whole day. But on Wednesday she said it’s time to do something and so we wrote postcards. Zandy is in postcrossing and we were able to help her writing postcards.

First she brought a black box.



I was really excitied what there is inside. So I opened it and look postcards.



First we had to get an address where our postcard will go (this one will go to Finland), after this we read the profile of the person (of course we didn’t take a picture of the profile, because there was shown the address and a picture). After we read we had to pick out a good postcard. But if you see it wasn’t easy do decided with one is the best. (Can you find me? *hehe*)



But the person I should write likes cards with shows the hometown of the people and old postcards. So I pick this card.





I like it. The cat is really nice, or what do you think mummy?!
Than I had to write some words on the card and the address.



And at least I had to pic up a stamp. Decisions, decisions, decisions… really hard. But of course I get two stampf.





We wrote nine postcards together. Look with we picked up. Aren’t this nice cards? I like them.





And than we had a little walk to the postbox, where we throw the cards inside.



Great journey postcards!

Bye mummy! Yours,
Muggel Rainbow

Hey mummy,

today we visited a medieval market at the castle in Untergruppenbach (near Heilbronn). And we decided, that we would do it right and so we dress up. Look, I’m a real knight. Now I'm SIR Muggel Rainbow. 



Love my dress. The others dress up as a amazon and a Scottish princess. Aren’t we nice?



First we had a look at the people who camp there. It was very interesting, but hard to understand for me when they talked. But Zandy had no problems with it and so she talked and we look at the interesting things. Here is an armour of a knight or better some pices of it and some swords.



And here is a camp of the Scottish people, one of them played a bagpipe and it was really nice.



It was hot outside so we get thirsty. I drink a mead. It was really delicious. “Slainte, mummy!” (Somebody told us that the Scottish people say it when they drink.)



Mummy look what a great view we had from the little bridge over the moat. One the one side there were jugglers and on the other side we saw a stage.





And than we get hungry, because we hadn’t have a big breakfast, so we decided to eat something and we found a really delicious bread with garlic and we could give some other things on it. YUMMY! I can told you!



The next picture was taken in the inner courtyard of the castle.



And than we walked a little bit and went up, from wehre we had a really great view over Untergruppenbach and the other citys around.



After we had enough of this we walked down into the vaulted cellar.



There were a lot of people with clothes. The most interesting thing was the big weaving loom. The men there was really nice, he showed us how you must do it and talked a little bit with us. And he allowed us to take this picture:



On the other side we came into the moat, how you can see now we stand in front of the stage. And  just at this moment there were some music on it. The man you can see are called “Spielleute Cantoris” and Zandy like them. They play funny songs – of course like in the medieval time.



Now we could look up at the wall of the castle and see it from above. Nice, or?!



Our next station was a booth from a crocker. Look what for nice things she had. Oh and can you see the little wooden castles? We all were really fascinated of them.





And than we walked back to the beginning of our tour, because there was a little arena and when we came there showed some things of higlandgames.





(klick at the picture!)


Another view over Untergruppenbach, here we are on the other side.







We found a place with shadow to relax and had a view over the arena and the tents.



After relaxing we decided to walk our way. And look what we found a real armour. It was in front of a smith. Great or? But I thing I won’t wear it, because it looks really heavy. My armour is better. 





And here we are in front of another tent. We thought it was for  the high society.



And another armour. But now it’s with leather. We didn’t really know, but we think it’s from Vikings.



Mommy can you see what we saw? Scary! We fastly take a picture and ran away, so that they didn’t catch us.



And this area I loved mostly. A area with bows and arrows.



And than we saw the highlight of the whole day: the tournament. So cool! All the knights were really good. I don’t know which one I liked most. First they come to the arena and herald introduce the knights.





The knights had to do some exercises (Exercitien in German). First they had to pick up the rings with their lance. And for every ring they pick up they get a point (Oculus).

(klick at the picture!)








Than it was time for headhunting. *hehe* There were a dark head standing on a red block. And the knights had to behead the dark head. They must knock out the red block and therefore they get points (Oculi).







The third discipline was the boar hunt. Therefore they prepare a wooden boar with a strawbag and all the knights hat to ride in a line and they must throw their lances into the boar.







Now you can see all the knights in the arena. They had little crowns on their helmet and the others had to knock off the crown. But they must do it from the front side. I German it’s called Bargordia, but we don’t know how to call it in English.



(klick at the picture!)




We really like the music. It’s perfect for this day and we can’t stand still, we would shake a little bit, but we know that maybe the people around us didn’t like it and of course we would see the Exercitien.
The next one was this. They had to throw the torso down with their lance. And if the herald had a lance, too. He metering the distance from the thing the torso was on it to the torso itself. And one full lance of the herald gives two Oculi (points)

(klick at the picture!)








One of the horses was young and was a little bit scary, so an older horse rides with him.



And this was a game in with the knights had to knock the shield with their lance an for every round the shield does they get a point. I like this very much, because they were very fast.

(klick at the picture!)


(klick at the picture!)




The next knight was really funny. He ride to the shield and blow on it. He thought that he get more rotations. So funny!





And the last Exercitium was the joust (Tjost). The knights hat to ride with their lances and must throw out their opponent out of the saddle or to broke their lance on the shield.



(klick at the picture!)


And than it was the end of the tournament Sadly, we had a lot of fun there. The knights say goodbye to the people.









(klick at the picture!)


Than we walked back to the castle, because we wanted to eat something before we go home. And there was a band playing some songs. We found a great place from which we see all.



Mummy do you know the next song? It was funny. And we can’t hold on, we dance and sing together! Wohoooo!

(klick at the picture!)


(klick at the picture!)


And of course we had a great view from our place. Here you see a wide view and a view at the wall of the castle (Stettenfels).







And our last view in the moat. With nice clothes in the background.





Mummy, I hope you enjoy this post how I enjoyed the day. It was soooo nice!

Love yours,
SIR Muggel Rainbow 

Hi Mum,

I arrived in Sülfeld. Dicker Kumpel is the host here – he gave me a warm welcome.



He introduced me to the other ToyVoyagers here.



I showed the things I brought with me.



Dicker Kumpel and RikeH said Thanks to Zandy!



I found these wonderful flowers inside.



I went outside into the garden and flew with this friendly gull.



Then I searched for more flowers. Can you see me?





Look – this flower was like a cap.



This flower was really nice.



I talked with these funny guys.



Back in the living-room I found this wonderful flower.



Yours
Muggel Rainbow

Hello Mum,

We are on our way to Finland now. RikeH was very busy the last days, so we didn’t update our travelogs, but now it will be better, we hope.

We went from Travemünde,Germany to Helsinki, Finland with the Ferry Finnlady. The weather was wonderful, but it was so stormy that RikeH decided to take only one photo of me outside. She didn’t want me to fly away.



Fortunately we had a wonderful cabin with many windows. Through this one I saw the way we went.



Then we all went to the window on the side of the ship. The sun was wonderful.





Of course we wanted to look to the other side.



Our ferry was great – look, there in front of us was a cruise ship.



Our Captain did a good job, so we won the race!





Love
Muggel