Continuing on our castle quest, we next went to Thun castle, which was just up the hill from our hotel.
It was a bit of a hike up the hill, but we finally made. With how many towers we'd already climbed in other castles, our legs were beginning to feel that workout!
We walked by the church on our way to the castle, and saw these awesome old paintings. I wish I could remember how old they are, but when you blog nearly a month after the fact, you forget some details. Sorry.
There's the church steeple.
Inside the castle, the tour started off with these creepy silhouettes that spun around in a circle in the first room, with no explanation. Ghosts of the castle?
The first floor had interesting artifacts from the city and history of Thun. We were lucky because there were English explanations along with the German, so we could understand what we were looking at. This flag is from 1476!!! Pretty amazing.
This banner had different parts added to it as different families won wars and such. I thought it was cool.
There were spears to make one look tough.
A really cool crossbow.
Another banner tapestry had a unicorn, to which Maple exclaimed, "See?! Unicorns are real." She believes it.
There is so much that I don't understand about this tapestry. Like why is the bottom middle bird stabbing itself in the heart with its beak? Why is there a ship filled with people coming out of its heart? And on and on my questions go.
This tapestry had four different saints, one of which was John the Baptist (on the left). I was mystified.
Why did he have an animal chewing on his finger?
Why did he have goat hair on his legs?
Why did this Saint (was it Catherine? I can't remember) have a snake in a goblet? I would ask why the snake was biting her finger, but that's what snakes do. They bite. The mystery on this one isn't the biting, but the goblet.
And the dress-up in the castle fun continued as we got to be knights!
Another banner with the names of the royals from Thun.
A cool old painting. During a battle, someone wiped out the ruling family's name and crest from the painting! Haha. Take that, rival!
We went through many a cool door as we climbed higher and higher in the castle.
On one floor, there was an interactive book for children to play a game in the castle. Open the book...
...learn about the one brother who killed his (heir-to-the-throne) brother in the castle (hence the ghosts downstairs)...
...look for the escape route of the assassins...
...by following the trail of blood...
...(seems an appropriate game for children, don't you think?...)
...until you find the blood dripping from the weapon...
...and go up the stairs to flee the scene of the crime...
Seriously? That was the children's game? Ack.
The view from higher up in the castle.
Continuing in the not-very-kid-friendly theme... This mask is a symbol of something in Thun, and it freaked me out every time I saw it. I don't even want to know what he's supposed to be...
Pictures of people who had lived in Thun...
We found the dungeon and Maple got trapped inside. Poor Maple, begging for scraps through the door window.
I got stuck in there too!
But I looked out the tiny window to the church for hope.
There were carvings in the walls from former prisoners. Here are some of the things that were written:
Showing what life was like years ago in Thun, here's a bicycle for a little one:
An explanation of the toys--very gender role specific.
The toy kitchen. I'd like to play with a real version of one of those!
The view the other direction out of the castle.
It was a dreary day, but the rain was so dreamy!
There were other floors to the castle, but I didn't get any good pictures up there, and I was feeling a bit afraid of the heights, so I only took this photo out the window and then headed back down.
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