Escape Plans

 Today we got up to our first breakfast in Colditz. It wasn’t as good as some other places we have been too but it was still very good. After breakfast we went on a history tour around the castle. This was so cool we looked at all the tunnels that the prisoners made when they were here. The main tunnel that we saw was the French tunnel in the museum there was even the original ladder that the French made all those years ago. On the tour we visited a cool little cellar. Well now it is a cellar, back in the day it was used for potato storage. The prisoners used this as a plan b for their escapes. Because of the stink of the rotting potato’s the guard dog could smell them so this made for a great escapes safe house. Down the far end of the cellar there is a small crack to outside the castle this is how they escaped. The most impressive escape plan was to secretly build a glider in the attic of a building by the clock tower. Fortunately the war ended before they got to escape. Now there is a replica of the glider in the same building. They were going to launch the glider off a runway built of tables on the night of the planned launch. The launch plan was to drop a bathtub off the end of the roof that was attached by a pulley system to the glider. Overall Colditz has been an awesome experience. Everyone found it interesting and we all had fun.

8/10 for Colditz because there wasn’t much to do in the village. Also I had to make my own bed and that was using energy I didn’t have after a long car ride. 

Max

I booked the Ranch with the kids in mind, a stay in Switzerland for Rich. This leg of our journey was for me. I love history and once I found out that it was possible not only to visit Colditz Castle, but you could actually stay in it, I was sold. It meant that we have a couple of biggish driving days, but it has been so incredible that it was worth the extra hours in the car. Plus when you are travelling around 140km on the autobahn it the kms literally fly by! 

If I were to describe this place I would have to say that it feels like the history is soaked into the walls. It’s got an eerie feel about it, but it is also beautiful in its harsh simplicity. First constructed as a gift for a queen from her husband Colditz has been used as a hunting resort, a mental hospital, the first concentration camp, a POW camp run by the Nazis for high ranking officers, it was then taken over by the Soviet Union and once again used as a hospital. It is now owned by the Saxony government and is used as a museum, function centre and youth hostel. 

The tour we went on was fascinating to me in a number of ways. The ingenuity of the prisoners was incredible. The tour focused on their ideas for escape and the lovely guide told us story after story of the different known escapees some successful, some not. 

What I found interesting was the fact that after the tour you felt like it was a semi friendly experience for the prisoners here and that escaping was more of a game than anything else. The dark history of this place was not discussed at all. 

Our experience here will be one of the stand outs of this trip for me. We move on tomorrow, to our next stop on our Germany road trip. I have been surprised by the incredible, breathtaking beauty of this country. The forests, farmland and architecture is stunning. The people are genuinely welcoming and warm. And thankfully due to the non existent speed limit, the drivers are very considerate! 

Donna