T H E * A M A Z I N G

This has truly been the most beautiful castle I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen some stunning places… It was also quite the adventure. We first arrived on this terrain somewhere around sunset. We walked all around the forest to find an easy and quiet entrance but getting through the forest and finding the castle was quite easy. When we saw this beautiful spot we decided to camp on the terrain. We wanted to go back to the car and grab our gear and thought that we could find an easier way. So we walked into the forest where we thought the quickest way to the little village was. This was a bad idea…
First we were walking on a path, and slowly but surely all the paths we had walked on were nowhere to be found, or completely blocked off by fallen trees. After about half an hour we had really lost all sense of direction, and in the mean time it had gone dark and birds all around us were going mental because of all this forest action. Blair witch project came to mind, but we didn’t speak about this until we were almost out, to spare ourselves the stress…
Eventually we found an exit and then we had realized how far we had gone off track, and how huge this forest really is. We went back to the car to get our stuff. We had a small moment of doubt, should we really go back in there? But we hadn’t seen it from the inside, and we had this great idea of getting up at sunrise to photograph this place with the morning fog. So we decided to go back and we did. We went back in the way we knew best, found a good spot and set up base camp. We enjoyed a really nice evening with a lovely bottle of whiskey, wondering what the history of this amazing castle is. We went to sleep and set the alarm for sunrise. That was a bit rough, but oh soo worth it.

The surroundings of this castle on a foggy morning in fall are simply breathtaking, but inside the history and the feeling that is left here by its previous owners is incomprehensible. When I walked into one of the bedrooms I saw all the stuff lying around there. The beds still made. Slippers on the floor. Clothes rested on one of the chairs, as if someone went to bed with their clothes hanging there ready for the next day, but then never showed up to put them back on…
It was an overwhelming feeling I felt at that moment, quite a sad one as well. I remember saying to my friends that I was so speechless that I simply didn’t know where to start with taking photos, there was just too much beauty. After being inside for about, what I think was 20 minutes, we heard a motorcycle from very close by. We went to peek out of one of the windows and we saw a man looking inside the building. I was quite amazed because I thought we had walked on all the paths in the forest, and all of them were blocked off. Apparently I was wrong. We waited in complete silence until this man had left, then we ran to make our way out. We were sure that he would come back. We went outside where we had hidden all of our packed gear, and waited there again for a while. We heard stuff coming from the forest, but weren’t quite sure if it came from animals or humans. Finally we made our way out of the forest and back to the normal world. We arrived at the car and had to sit on the curb for a while. Lying in the morning sun and realizing what we had just experienced. This was fucking amazing….

All photos made with a Pentacon six TL, Kodak Ektachrome 100Plus.
End of september, 2009.