Hoensbroek Castle

Last weekend we took Jim’s mom to the Hoensbroek Castle (http://www.kasteelhoensbroek.nl/) in the Netherlands. She’s now been to the land of the Dutch 3 separate times in the first 10 days she was here. We ended up going up to Maastricht the weekend before with her and then twice more this past weekend. I guess we just love the Netherlands. I think it might be a combination of their sing song language (sounds a little like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets), that everyone speaks English or the fact that the Dutch are just very happy, friendly, people with good taste in clothing and food.

Hoensbroek Castle was the largest castle between the rivers Meuse and Rhine and had 40 rooms open for viewing. Oddly, the castle was set right in the middle of a residential area so there were normal houses right across the street.

The castle is very kid friendly. They have a bunch of games as you walk into the first courtyard. Kids (or adults) can play a ring toss, try to walk on stilts, and play other kid’s games from the time period. They also have some sort of a mystery hunt for kids taking them through the castle and its secret passages while they are dressed up as knights and maidens.

As with many of the sights in Europe, the system for leading visitors through a tour of the castle was somewhat confusing and unorganized. We had difficulty finding our way so ended up simply wandering the castle in no particular order. The guidebook we had was a bit dry so we also read through the laminated information cards for the kids in each room. I found those a lot more interesting than the adult version. I’m not sure what that says about me.