F1 Cars, Tanks, and a Space Shuttle, Oh My!

This morning we would like to leave bright and early as we have a very busy day. Not only do we have a 5 hour drive ahead of us, but we want to stop and explore a museum. We also have a deadline of when we need to check into our hotel this evening.

We get to breakfast shortly after they open. Breakfast is a buffet style with lots of choices of sliced meats, sausages, poached eggs on a tomato jam which is a specialty of the Schönburg Castle. They also have lots of bread with jams, pastries, fruit, etc.

Landon and Nate enjoyed cherry juice with breakfast, an unusual treat

We even find caviar as an option, so Nate grabs a little of each so we can all try it. Our consensus is that we don't feel the need for more... tastes like fish water in a ball... I would rather the fish.

As we are leaving breakfast we see that the castle museum is open early today. Because we are guests of the hotel we are able to get in for free and go up the tower for a view from the top. The stairways are very narrow and sometimes more like ladders. The view from the top is great though!

A model of the tower we are climbing

On one of the top levels they have a trebuchet that you can "fire"...it is hooked up a video game where you pull a lever and there is an animation on a screen of you hitting a castle in the distance.

On the lowest level there are some crossbows made of wood with some suction cup arrows that you can fire at targets.

The kids want to look at the gift shop before we leave and we learn the guy running the gift shop and museum is also famous for drawing technical drawings for Ferrari, Porche and others. His name is Jochen von Osterroth. He has also written 17 books, including a history book of the Schönburg Castle which we buy from him. Nate also buys one of his car drawings and he signs both of them for us.

Nate with Jochen von Osterroth

The kids waving from our room window

Passing through the opening where the tower iron gate would have come down

Heading to the outer wall gate on our way out

Here is a brief history on this castle. It was first mentioned in 911 A.D. and went though many tribal fights and family feuds. This castle was one of very few medieval castles that was equally shared with all sons upon the death of the duke. So at the height of the power in the 14th century there were 24 different families living here, about 250 people including the servants.

In 1689 during "The Nine Years' War" French troops set fire to the town of Oberwesel and the Schönburg Castle. The castle remained in ruins for two centuries. The castle changed hands many times. Around 1914 a German-American spent over 2 million gold marks (equal to around 65 million in today's USD) on restoring the castle. The town of Oberwesel was able to acquire the Castle in 1950 and has leased the castle to the Huttl family since 1957 on a hereditary lease. It's now the 3rd generation of the Huttl family running the castle.

It's time to get on the road. The Schönburg Castle sits at an elevation of 426 feet directly above the Rhine River and the road down to the river is quite steep. This allows us to charge up our hybrid battery a few percent as we coast down the hill. The charge allows us to then drive for a couple miles on battery alone, not bad considering it was just from coasting.

View of the Schönburg Castle as we head down the mountain toward the Rhine River.

We tell the kids to count the castles we see as there will be so many along the drive, especially while we are along the Rhine River. Here are a few of the 16 castles we see along our drive for the day.

We have a couple hour drive before we'll reach our stop for the day at the Technik Museum, but as we are navigating I realize there are two of them. After looking at what is at each location, we really want to go to both museums. The two locations are about 30-45 minutes apart and both in the direction we need to travel.

The first stop is the Speyer location. The first large room we enter is full of all kinds of cars, trucks, motorcycles, racecars, etc.

This F1 car was the Sauber Petronas C20 from 2001. It was driven by Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Räikkönen.  That year they placed 4th in the Constructors' Championship

A cut-away of a John Deer tractor so you can see the engine and transmission

A replica of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine that he designed in the 1400's

Brutus, the name of this experimental vehicle that has an engine from a WWI heavy bomber on the chassis of a 1907 American LaFrance. Built in 2006 and featured in the British TV show Top Gear, presenter Jeremy Clarkson described driving it as "doing a crossword while being eaten by a tiger".

The 46.9 liter BMW V12 aircraft engine provides 490-550 hp, but can do bursts of up to 750 hp. It has a 3 speed gearbox with a chain drive, but is missing some important things like front brakes!

Truck prototype by German designer Luigi Colani

1955 BMW Isetta

1959 Corvette had a 5.4 liter V8 that produced 245 hp

1964 Amphicar. They built around 3,500 of these amphibious cars. Designed to be able to be taken on the road and the water, it successfully crossed the English Channel in 1962.

Next we go to the space wing and check out the OK-GLi Soviet atmospheric test vehicle that was built in 1984. It was used to launch up and then glide back down to test landing handling. It completed 25 test flights. It looks like a US Space Shuttle, but is not quite the same.

     

Inside of the OK-GLi Soviet atmospheric test vehicle. The top auxiliary doors would open so they could fit it with four AL-31 jet engines for take off.

View from the belly up inside where all the cables and wires and tubes of the space vehicle are

Replica of the space suit that was worn by John Glenn during the first American flight orbiting the earth in 1962

They have a moon exhibit that shows a replica of the lunar surface, as well as replicas of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, and Lunar Roving Vehicle. Behind the kids to the right a replica of the Apollo 17  space suits and more.

This 2000 Veritas RS 3 was designed as a tribute car to the 1950s Veritas brand, which was the first German participant in F1 and the most successful. This car was also featured on the BBC TV program Top Gear, and was shown for many years at the famous Nürburgring track in Nürburg, Germany

This Daimler Reitwagen is considered the worlds first motorcycle. Developed in 1885, this wooden two wheeler had a .5 hp engine.

Pringles vending machine

They also had a robotic gift shop vending machine. You would select the number of what you want and pay and the robot would deliver the item. We didn't try it out so we didn't get to see it in action.

The cool thing about this location is that they have a U-boat (German submarine). I would have preferred seeing a WWII U-boat as I've done a lot of research in that era, but this is still very cool.

To the left is the German rescue cruiser John T Essberger, it served for 26 years and helped rescue around 1,100 people over some 2000 missions. The middle is U-boat S-188, more on that below. To the right is the Sean o'Kelley Houseboat where the music group The Kelly Family lived for many years.

Below are pictures from inside U-boat 188

The kids sitting at the dining tables on the U-boat 188. This submarine was build in 1966 and served for 25 years. Over that time it traveled 174,850 nautical miles. 16,478 hours were spent underwater. The WWII-era U-boat design was not very efficient underwater, so it spent most of the time in the surface. However after WWII they changed to this updated hull design which proved faster underwater.

The two torpedo tubes

A very small kitchen

It was very interesting to see, but I wouldn't want to be one of the 22 crew members in that tight space.

1940 US Sherman M32 used as an armored recovery vehicle and was used in clean-up operations in destroyed cities in France after WWII was over.

They have a cool display of model ships through the ages

This ride was labeled something about gravity, so we expected it to spin fast, however I think I could have probably walked faster than it, so it wasn't much of a thrill.

Fokker DR 1 was a one seater developed during WWI. The "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen who was considered the ace of aces in the German air force, flew this type of aircraft.

Since we spent extra time at the castle this morning, we don't have a ton of time, so we are rushing through at hyper-speed. When we are done we get back on the road and head towards Sinsheim.

Because we have tickets from the other location they give us a little discount. Still I wouldn't recommend going to both if you're on a time crunch as the tickets are quite expensive, especially for how little time we had to spend at each location.

The second location has a nice collection of F1 cars as well as and other racecars.

Fomula 3 Red Bull car driven by Dan Ticktum in 2017

The Blue Flame is the fastest rocket powered vehicle of all time. It has 58,000 hp and set the land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah back in 1970 with an average speed of 1014 kmh (630 mph).

They have a large display of tanks and military vehicles from WWII, including some that are wrecked. They supposedly have a "tank garden" outside that you can see even more, but we can't figure out how to get to it, and in the end we just leave as we're running out of time.

This Panther tank is remote controlled, and if you pay a couple euros you can move the treads and the turret of the tank. The Panther tank was considered the best German tank during WWII.

1943 Sherman M4 was the most important US tank in WWII

Flak 10,5 cm was an anti-aircraft gun. Due to it's large size it was usually mounted to ships or railway cars.

1940 half-track motorbike used in WWII and then later for many years in agriculture and forestry due to it's abilities to go over difficult terrain.

This Krupp 40.6 was a WWII shell made for a German naval defense battery

We didn't travel to the future in the DeLorean, but we did take a look at some cars from the past

Peugeot Type 4 from 1892

1896 Benz Velo, was the first mass produced car in the world

1894 Einrad motorized unicycle from Paris

A fun looking unique playground, but we don't have time to let the kids play unfortunately

They also have a U-boat at this location, but we don't go into this one.

On the roof you can actually climb next to a Concorde Jet and take a peak inside the Soviet competitor the TU-144, however we don't have time to do this, so we just admire them from the ground on our way out.

Our hotel is still 3 hours away and we are supposed to call if we will arrive after 6 PM, which we will. When I call they say they will email me a code to get into a lock box for a key, but when we arrive we don't see a lock box and I still don't have an email.

The heads up display showing the speed limit and next GPS directions etc.

Some beautiful German countryside down in Bavaria

Thankfully a guy arrives a minute or so behind us to check us in. He gives us the code and tells us the lock box is just outside our room door.

Sure enough outside of every room is a little lock box for the key. This is a more modern looking hotel, however there still isn't AC. Thankfully they provide us with a fan in the room, and we open some windows to allow the cool fresh mountain air in.

By this time we need to find something for dinner, so after searching online we settle on an Italian place where Nate and I get pasta and the kids share a pizza. They are very nice and cut the pizza in half and serve each kid a plate with their half.

We have to get up early tomorrow, so by the time we get back to the hotel it's time for showers and bed.