My hometown Weinheim is known by the epithet Zwei-Burgen-Stadt.  The appearance of the two castles in the distance, one ancient and one fairly modern, with the adjoining and quarry was always a sign to me that I would be home soon.

Wachenburg to the left and Windeck to the right seen from the banks of the channelled arms of the Weschnitz, a small river flowing into the River Rhine about 30km to the east.

The Windeck is around 1000-years-old. It was built as a fortress to safeguard the assets of the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch.

The Wachenburg is only around a 100-years-old and was built and is still owned by a student corps.

The expansion of the quarry was finally stopped when a citizens’ group went to court and forced the closure of the enterprise.  The twist in the tale is that around 1900 the whole hill (consisting of a relatively valuable form of porphyry) was sold to a community about 10km to the south in exchange of agricultural fields and hence, our town was more interested in preserving the hill with the Wachenburg on it than the quarry company who had plans to erase the whole hill.  But sanity prevailed and since the operations have shut down nature is reclaiming the quarry with several species of animals rediscovered that had disappeared from the area (a large species of owl amongst them).

We are so proud of our two castles that we even sell a cookie cutter in the shape of the silhouette.

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