Burg Frankenstein, or Castle of Frankenstein, is where I went today! Yesh! The Frankenstein that you read about.. No no, the story is not from there, BUT the name is associated with this place.. Yeah, the one written by Mary Shelley.. Frankenstein means Franks' stone or stone of the Franks in German..
Mary Shelley maintained that she derived the name "Frankenstein" from a dream-vision. Despite her public claims of originality, the significance of the
name has been a source of speculation. Literally, in German, the name Frankenstein means "stone of the Franks." The name is associated with various places such as Castle Frankenstein (Burg Frankenstein), which Mary Shelley had seen while on a boat before writing the novel. Frankenstein is also a town in the region of Palatinate; and before 1946, Ząbkowice Śląskie, a city in Silesia, Poland, was known as Frankenstein in Schlesien.
More recently, Radu Florescu, in his book In Search of Frankenstein, argued that Mary and Percy Shelley visited Castle Frankenstein on their way to Switzerland, near Darmstadt along the Rhine, where a notorious alchemist named Konrad Dippel had experimented with human bodies, but that Mary suppressed mentioning this visit, to maintain her public claim of originality. A recent literary essay by A.J. Day supports Florescu's position that Mary Shelley knew of, and visited Castle Frankenstein before writing her debut novel. Day includes details of an alleged description of the Frankenstein castle that exists in Mary Shelley's 'lost' journals. However, this theory is not without critics; Frankenstein expert Leonard Wolf calls it an unconvincing... conspiracy theory." and the 'lost journals' as well as Florescu's claims could not be verified.
And so..... We decided to go there since it's so popular.. Apparently people have Halloween parties in this place.. Interesting...
So... It's near Darmstadt.. It's on a hill!!! When we asked people how do we go there, and they would ask if we are going there by car!! Lol!! Means noone usually hike up?? haha!
We decided to just do it! And we were just had to take a tram from Darmstadt.. And we walked through the woods..
Very nice start.. Very spacious, I must say.. It's VERY different from Singapore.. In Singapore/ Malaysia, it's truly a rainforest.. Here, the trees are sooooo far apart!! Like one metre? And they are skinny trees! Lol!! You can see people 100m away! Ok, it's not exactly like the pic above, because this was taken deeper into the forest.. haha! There was a wide and clear path, so we can't get lost even if we want to.. hahah! And so we walked...
And walked....
And walked........
And walked... We had to cross a road... We were frustrated because it was taking FOREVER!!! hahha! I think we took an hour to reach here.. Very very far!! AND so...... We decided to do something adventurous! Just walk up, don't follow the long and gentle path, because it takes forever to get to the top of the hill!! Lol!
So.... Let's just take this way.. Hmmmm.... This way looks good!
AND luckily we were rewarded fast.. It was a brave and daring move, but we got there really fast!! hahahah! By luck!!
But ahhhh... Such disappointment! There wasn't much to see.. Not much to do... I think mostly were destroyed or something..
We only stayed there for 15min!! After walking for sooooooo long!! hahhahah!! BUT thank goodness the walk in the forest was very nice.. Seriously... Like a stroll in the forest.. hahah! Instead of a stroll in a park.. AND it was an exercise!! I haven't been doing much exercise, so I guess I deserve it!! Lol!
Sitting on an interesting chair within the compund! Cool huh?
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