This church in Gelnhausen is the focal point of the town. The building has remained largely unchanged in its original condition dating back to the 1100s when the town was started. Documents from the early 1200s mention the completed and functioning church.
Next I’ll show you the exquisite tapestries in the church that date back to the 1400s.
We spent a few hours wandering in Gelnhausen today. You can see how the river flows around the castle area we just visited. The ruins today are in yellow.
This is a grandma’s back yard that backs up to the castle wall. Take a look at the creativity!
An old bakery sign with a pretzel:
Come wander with us!
Here is one of the bridges that crosses the river into town.
More about this witch’s tower in a coming post.
We headed towards the center of town and the Marienkirche cathedral.
But first a stop in the plaza to visit the bakery there. This is the very bakery where we started our tradition of “A Pastry in Every Town We Visit.”
In the plaza is this memorial to Philipp Reis, the man who invented the telephone on this side of the ocean (at the same time Alexander Graham Bell was inventing in America).
So many textures! 
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The blue house below is where Philipp Reis was born (the telephone inventor).
The historic Jewish synagogue:
We are still enjoying Spargel (asparagus) season.
This is the visitor’s center and entrance to the castle grounds in Gelnhausen. The castle is surrounded by a river mote outside of town.
Wikipedia:
The Imperial Palace of Gelnhausen , also known as Barbarossaburg, dates back to Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa “red beard”), like the neighboring town of Gelnhausen, founded in 1170. The Imperial Palace served to expand and secure the imperial possessions in the Wetterau and on the Via Regia between Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig by the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Despite its ruinous state, it is considered the best-preserved palace complex of the Hohenstaufen period because of the almost exclusively original building fabric.
The complex was part of a network of neighbouring palaces in Frankfurt, Friedberg, Wetzlar, Treburand Seligenstadt, which secured the area of the Wetterau.
Inside the visitor’s center–here is a model of the town of Gelnhausen as it was in 1200, with the cathedral in the middle of town and the Kinzig River just outside the town’s walls.
We learned the chronology of the town’s history.
Wooden pylons from the river help to date when things were built.
Now to the castle–
We climbed up into the upper levels of the castle tower.
The rain gutter systems were really interesting. What felt like tin was molded over the tops of the ruin walls to help preserve them.
There was a park (backyard) inside the castle walls. It was peaceful and beautiful, with large old trees and an old well.
This is where the added stairs came out on top.
This castle was like a vacation home for the rich and famous in their day. They’d come here to relax and enjoy the cool river breezes. I can see why. It was peaceful and beautiful.
A patchwork wall. My quilting self loves this.
We returned to Gelnhausen today with the Feinauers. When we last visited here (during the winter months) the castle was closed and we wanted to return to see it. We parked in the same place outside the wall around the castle complex by this old magical door. I remember noticing and taking a photo of it last time. What we did not notice last time, were the Stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks on the ground in front of this gate.
Usually you see one or maybe two brass stones together. Sometimes you see a whole group, like these. These stumbling blocks represent actual people who lived in this actual place before they were taken from their homes. Most were murdered during the Holocaust. These memorials are scattered through towns all over Europe and are a reminder to us that good people were killed and lives were lost because of evil people. We must never forget what happened.
Siegfried and Selma Weis were right next to the row of their neighbors.
It literally stops you dead in your tracks, when you see these memorial. You feel compelled to bed and read their names and what happened to them. You REMEMBER them, even if you didn’t know them in this life.
Here is another family we found this morning, in front of this beautiful home:
Here are a few others we saw today in Gelnhausen:
I am grateful for these subtle reminders that cause us to pause and give thanks for the freedoms we enjoy today.
Below is a photo of an old window in stone by the Gelnhausen city wall. I always think of eyelashes when I see stones set like these.
This is the other side of the remains of that ancient wall. Notice the blue half-timber home behind it.
Look how the builders compensated for the uneven ground as they straightened the home!
Here is a place where heaven touches earth. It’s perhaps my favorite place in all of Germany. We go here often and feel peace.
For weeks now, we’ve been working hard to prepare 34 new apartments for our missionaries in Bad Homburg. As new missionaries arrive, they move in to these apartments. And slowly, the rest of us will be moving over too.
This afternoon we walked through several of the apartments to see how things are coming. Imagine furnishing so many apartments from start to finish! Our facilities team is incredible. Last week all the sofas arrived. Every week, more things come together. These new apartments are lovely and it will be great to have most of us in one place.
The Frankfurt Mission couples and missionaries will stay in the Portstrasse apartments where we now live. The mission was thrilled to take over the contracts in the apartments we are vacating because more and more missionaries are arriving. We also house the missionaries serving in Turkey here in Frankfurt.
These are in no particular order, just to give an idea of what it will be like:
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 