Parkstein, Germany

The sun was shining this morning, and although it was a bit chilly, when the sun shines in Germany this time of year, you GO OUTSIDE.  Because I think I've seen the sun approximately 5 times in the last month.  I'm pretty sure this is the Seattle of Europe because it is ALWAYS gray and rainy here.  We never get a lot of rain... just rain.  All. The. Time.

So we tried to find something quickly we could do for a couple of hours to get outside.  We decided to head out to Parkstein, Germany, about a half hour away to check out an inactive volcano with a church built on top of it!

There's a little parking area right at the base, and it isn't hard to get to at all.  The basalt formations that make up the mountain are unbelievable.  More on those in a minute (but you can see them quite well in the picture above).

Time to hike to the top!  Lots of stairs but not to strenuous.

There's also the remains of an old castle up at the top near the church.  It was thought to have been originally owned by King Conrad II and was built somewhere around 1000 AD.  There's not much left to it, but at least you're allowed to climb all over it.

Beautiful mosaic stations of the cross surround the ruins of the castle.

View facing east from the top near the church, approximately 600 meters above sea level.  Saint Mary's Mountain Church was closed, and I was disappointed as I had seen pictures in other blogs and really wanted to go in! 

But the cross showing Jesus flanked by Mary and Mary Magdalene is stunning.  It's very life like! 

There's a new-ish "throne" chair carved out of the base of a tree right next to the church.  I'm not sure why this is here, but I enjoyed pretending I was the queen with my little princess and prince next to me.

This was cool... because you are so high up, you can see pretty far away on a clear day. This handy little map shows which direction you want to look to find your city!

The Parksteiner Geopath provided a lot of information about the types of minerals you could find and have found within the volcano.  It was touchy feely too. You could touch the mineral both in it's raw state as well as in it's manufactured and finished state.  (Todd was holding Grant up here in this picture!)

Proof that the sun was actually shining today.

The basalt formations are shaped with between 5-7 sides.  Personally, they kind of look like a wave hitting a wall and being forced upward.  They were formed by the volcano about 24 million years ago. (!!!)

A cutie hiking up for a closer look of the basalt formations.  I think they look like the Baratheon throne from Game of Thrones ha ha ha!

Naturally.  The clowns.