Saint Ulrich Castle
22 May 2018
From the Notre Dame de Duzenbach, we hiked further up the hillside. A little stream followed the path along before we turned off to a smaller, steeper trail. There was a buzzing through the trees, like a giant bee swarm that echoed within the woods and seemed to surround us. We never actually saw any bees though. So surreal. At the top the ground became flat and the buzzing fell behind us, and we took a break and a snack at a picnic table conveniently sitting along the trail. A little further along and the top of the first castle broke through the tree line. This one was Chateau de St Ulrich, built way back in the 11th century where it was the seat of the Lords of Ribeaupierre.
We turned the corner of the trail around the walls of the castle, and as we ascended the stairway up to the entrance, we had a clear view over the mountainside to the village below. Truly amazing how small everything looks from up here. Maybe more amazing is just how far up we are! We continued up the stairs and entered the castle proper. The place was huge!
St Ulrich is a ruin, so many of the walls were down or gone and there was no roof. Still, you could get a solid feel for the layout and were definitely aware that you were passing between spaces that were once separate rooms. Nature has made its claim on the ground once again, but for now most of the basic form is still standing. Built into the hillside making for an upward slope, you can climb to the higher parts of the ruin and look down on the rest of the castle. I don’t know if there were once additional stories or not, but you can see the various rooms laid out from above. One room that stands out is the Salle des Chevaliers, the long “hall of knights” adorned with its giant windows overlooking the mountainside. Must have been quite a sight back in the old days with a bustling feast looking over the villages below. Of course, you wouldn’t have the vantage point I had – there would be a roof in the way!
We climbed all through the ruins, taking pictures, looking down the mountainside to the towns and valley below, chasing lizards across the rocks, and peeking up over the walls. There was a breathtaking view of Château du Girsberg, the next castle on the path. With all of that, we still took time to just sit on the rocks and form a sense of where we are. The history that happened within these walls, and the horrors of the time I’m sure we aren’t even aware of, all of it from a world we could hardly imagine today. Very different from the stately ballroom and luxurious dining halls of Hohenzollern, St Ulrich seemed much more raw. Maybe it had those luxuries, but you get the feeling this was more of a fortification than a palace. But who knows? Maybe the Salle des Chevaliers once had a floor as smooth and shiny, its polish and even the very wood itself lost to time...
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