Mary Shelley is supposed to have visited there before writing Frankenstein, according to the castle’s website; her stepmother was the English translator for the Grimms, and through this connection she probably heard a story about the alchemist and doctor Johann Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein, who was reputed to have created a monster that escaped into the surrounding woods and abducted children and virgins. Or not, according to Wikipedia.
There’s just a ruin there now, but at Halloween they set up a haunted house. They’ve been doing it since we lived in Darmstadt when I was a kid; we went one year, and I still remember some of it (I couldn’t have been older than 5, so it would have made a big impression on me).
Fling! A trebuchet. Or mangonel. I don’t know the difference.
The tower. Nice view, eh?
Full album on the right.
