MIttelalterliches Burgfest Stettenfels - April 28th

The little town of Untergruppenbach. You can see the Burg up on a hill

Vineyards on the way up to the Burg

Tents where the participants camp for the weekend. The fest is Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. (Wednesday is a holiday in Germany)

Walking to the entrance of the burgfest

from outside the wall, we could see the top of a carousel.

Looking out from the top of the hill over the vineyards and little village.

Horses!

Man-powered carousel! Heck yes being electricity free!

And it wasn't just a ride for children. There was a sign that said adults are also welcome!

Really cool woolen figurings. There was a unicorn and what appears to be Gandalf.

A puppet show. With authentic creepy puppets!

Flammkuchen! It's basically a pizza thing. This one was super delicious potato and cheese

The glasses that hot mead is served in

parade!

There was an area with about 6 or 7 of these big sweet dogs, and a sign that said "Doggenfruende"

I missed Ollie and Frisket. ...sooo cute!

This lady was awesome! She was juggling, and then since we were the little group that cheered and clapped the most, she stopped in front of us, and balanced a juggling bowling pin thing on her chin, and THEN borrowed the giant axe/staff from one of the Viking guys in the parade and balance that on her chin too!!!

The jousting arena

We thought there was going to be a jousting show at 1:30pm, but for the first half hour it was basically all the riders warming up their horses

And then there wasn't even any jousting!

 Instead there was a game/competition where people held rings on polls along the red fence, and the riders took turns galloping their horses along and trying to collect all the rings on their lances.

 

I learned today that jousting is appropriately named "lanzenstecken" in German. It translated to lance-stabbing.

 

Entrance to the actual burg

The market place area inside the burg!

Wonderfully beautiful garden area at the back of the burg building

View from one of the little lookouts

The Gewoelbekeller! Aka the arched celler. It was the very bottom floor of the burg, and very cool looking with the chandeliers. I bought a 10Euro pocketwatch from one of the vendors here.

A really pretty old house/building next to the burg, with a fantastic garden!

Path leading to the burg entrance. The garden was remarkably pretty!

In the original mote of the burg- more stands!

This is a lovely stair case in the remodeled burg building. The bathrooms were to the left of the stairs, also very nicely remodeled, but the walls were definitely original stone, which was very neat.

 

 

And here are a few pictures Helly took: