Day Trips from Frankfurt - Part 2, Büdingen

Part 2, cont'd. At this point, you can either choose to keep on walking into town, or you could walk all around the city walls. We chose to walk into town, as we had a private tour booked with the Tourist Info. Cost was 41 € for a 90 min. tour in English. Our guide was fantastic, and quite funny. Her name is Heide-Diana Massakas and you can ask for her if you want to reserve a tour with the TI. She took us inside of the city walls, which is really cool and if you have kids they will love doing this, then into the Witches Tower and then a climb up to the top of the massive towers. The view is stunning from up here and on a clear day, you can also see Ronneburg Castle. We walked around to the unique 13 sided palace, found out lots of information about fachwerk buildings, learned all about the frogs hanging everywhere in town, and visited the Marien Church, where we learned why there are big gashes in the red sand stone of the church. After our tour, we visited the Hauson Museum which was interesting though lacking in English text descriptions. Lunch was at a nice German restaurant on the main street running thru town, and later we had cake and coffee at the Hexen Stubb. Just about the most traditional little cafe' as you could wish for.

Part 2, cont'd. Afterwards, we strolled around a good portion of the city walls and then walked thru some of the dry moat. Only 1 train an hour goes back to Frankfurt, so we made sure we left for the station with time to spare. There is also a 50's museum in town, but haven't checked it out yet. Several lovely hotels, pensions & B&B's are located in town. Every other year, a huge Medieval Fest takes place here, and the Christmas Market also has a Medieval section set up along the walls which gives it a very special atmosphere. My recommendations are to book a private tour to get the most out of Büdingen. Watch the film too, so you can catch a bit of the flavor of this historic town. http://www.buedingen-touristik.de/en.html

Very nice town, I went there last year on your recommendation, Jo. It's one of the towns that I use as a rebuke to the "Rothenburg-is-a-must-see" mantra.

I completely agree with Tom. I had a wonderful, much too short, time in Büdingen. I don't go to RodT anymore because it just so over-run and there is something that rubs me up the wrong way with so many all-year Christmas stores. Büdingen is nearly free of tourists, and people don't know what they are missing. A good tour guide in Frankfurt will know all about Büdingen.

Sounds super charming, will plan a day trip there soon! Thanks for the info!

I served with the Army Artillery in Budingen during the late 60's and early 70's. Budingen is charming and unforgettable. Loved it. Especially when the snow covered the town. Just magical.

I had to do a double take here, because I really didn't remember replying to a thread about Büdigen yesterday... then I saw that this thread is a year old. Anyway, Jo, one other point, you mentioned Ronneburg castle. I've driven by but not visited. Do you know if the castle is a ruin or more or less intact? I'm trying to assemble a list of non-Romantic era German castles that were never destroyed or left abandonned to rot. So far, the list is kind of short- Burg Eltz, Marksburg, Burg Breuberg, Burg zu Burghausen, maybe Falkenburg in the Hartz, Burg Zwingenburg, and maybe Felsburg and Burg Trausnitz.

Looks like it is an original, according to the history on their website. Nice medieval fest on the 28-29th Sept. 2013 They also do falconry shows. I would love to go there, but there is no public transportation. Easiest is a 10 min. taxi ride from Büdingen. http://www.burg-ronneburg.de/cms/ Another original Staufen castle is in Kronberg. Never been bombed or burned down. These were robber knights, and they have quite a history with Frankfurt. Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Queen Victoria and also the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm 2, restored the castle. Her son gave it to her to get her out of Berlin. He didn't like his mom very much, as he blamed her for his fathers death and her liberal ideas from the UK didn't fit in with his Prussian views. http://www.burgkronberg.de/ The castle in Marburg looks to be intact too.
http://www.marburg.de/en/48593

Hmm, I didn't realize the Burg Kronberg is more or less original. I've only driven past and seen it from Opel Zoo, and I thought it was a rebuild. Now that I think about it a little more, the castle at Idstein looks more preserved than rebuilt. I thought perhaps the castle in Stolberg near Aachen would qualify as well, but apparently it was largely reconstructed in the 20th century.