Last stop for the day, Festung Königstein, otherwise known as Fortress Königstein. I now know the difference between a palace, castle and fortress. Palace A residence, unprotected, often with a street address. Buckingham Palace is an example. Castle A protected house. Probably a house with about a hundred servants in it, but ostensibly, a house with major walls, moats and the like. Fortress A garrison. Loaded with soldiers. Ugly, mean, underfed, underpaid soldiers who get meaner by the minute. Built for defense, as you shall soon see. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Festung Königstein is definitely a fortress. I noticed, as I panted my way up to it's entrance, that I passed A drawbridge and a 2 metre wall, A drawbridge, a fortified door and a 3 metre wall, A drawbridge, a fortified door and a 2-3 metre wall and finally An inside fortified door. Then I had to walk up this long tunnel that looked like it was built for pouring hot oil downhill. Looking at the pictures you will also see that for some reason there are these three mini-mountains in this valley and the Fortress is located on the far right one in the next picture. Realizing that arrows work better going downhill with gravity rather than trying to shoot uphill, and with the location up on this mountaintop, they were basically free from catapult assaults, ladders (they would have to be just too high, regardless of what you saw in the Lord of the Rings). Add on to that the bunkers inside for soldiers, other people in the fortress and the powder magazine bunker, I'd say they were pretty well defended. What also amazed me was that they drilled down 150 m into this rock to find water for the garrison. Solid rock!
Festung Königstein is on the far right hand side mountain
Residences, looking up from outside the Fortress
They built this place right into the rock
Second entrance info, I still need to translate this
Second entrance and Drawbridge
