The misadventures of Lorik and Scott

In order to pass the week more usefully Lorik and I decided to go sight seeing last night. We wanted to go check out some castles since Germany is known for it's picturesque castles. In other travels I had passed a sign for Schloss Burg pretty near to Köln. Lorik looked it up and found that it was a mountain. We weren't sure where exactly to go so I did a search of the area and found a city (Eschweiler) about 30 minutes away that had 7 castles in it. That seemed like a decent concentration so we plugged the city into the navigation system and drove out. Unfortunately there is some mis translation going between English and German. So what we were looking for was a castle or schloss. What we found was a 'castle' or burg.

Strike 1 Castle of Kinzweiler: When we got into town we drove right past where the navigation system told us was the first castle. From my research we were looking for a golf course which is the address we entered. After busting a U-turn we got back to the first place, parked and started walking around. It took a while, since we were looking for a castle, to figure out that we were in the right spot. The place was deserted, but it was about 7:30pm and most places are closed at that time. The navi said that we were at the right spot but all we saw was this giant house. Now the house did have a moat, which was sweet. We wandered up onto the patio and a pair of German teenagers passed us. I tried to stop them and ask where we were, but they ignored my English. Since it really looked like someone lived there I snapped 2 quick photos and we left.

Strike 2 Castle of Eschweiler: We entered another castle into the navi and it took us into the middle of the town... to the hospital. Yes, the second castle listed in the points of interest on the navi was nothing but a couple old busted up towers that weren't even picture worthy. The hospital was built incorporating the towers, which was mildly interesting.

Strike 3 Castle of Röthgen: We decided we would try 1 more place. We pass by it looking for parking and finally park in the parking lot of an auto mechanic. We walk back toward the castle and pass a stable. The stable appears to actually have been part of the castle. This burg also had a small moat and maybe a large wall since the front half was covered in ivy. Once again though, this was not a castle but a burg. One that also seemed like it was a private residence. After getting shot down 3 times and being rained on we finally left for some Arslan's Kebop and a tasty KalbDöner in Köln.

And for grins here is what another 30 minutes of research would have shown...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschweiler
The funniest part was that in the list of interesting things the power plant was included. Indeed without knowing I snapped some shots of the power plant because it was actually interesting. Plus with the rain it seemed like the whole building was smoking.

Also, Schloss Burg is a real castle. From Wikipedia:

"Schloss Burg, located in Burg an der Wupper (Solingen), is the largest reconstructed castle in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and a popular tourist attraction."