Neuleiningen: Trip to enchanting town is like a step back in time
Neuleiningen must be one of the best-kept secrets in Germany.
Perched on a hill overlooking the Deutsche Weinstrasse — the German wine road also known as “Beautiful Road of a Thousand Enchantments” — it truly is enchanting.
The little town of 900 residents has 11 restaurants and a number of centuries-old family-owned wineries that process grapes from surrounding vineyards. It won awards in both 1987 and 1997 in competitions to select the most beautiful towns in Germany and in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, respectively. Bernard Freyland, former mayor, laughs that Neuleiningen has withdrawn from competitions in order to “give others a chance.”
The noble Leiningen family settled in Neuleiningen around 1240 and built a family castle shortly after. The castle is unique for this time and in this region: it is square with four round corner towers. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land brought the shape from the Mediterranean. Today, all that stands of the original structure are four corner towers and parts of the walls.
It was from one of these towers that, during the Peasants War of 1525, Countess Eva saw a band of peasants surging up the hill with pitchforks, wooden rakes and makeshift weapons. Her husband, the Count of Leiningen, had gone out with his well-armed soldiers to face the rebelling peasants and left the countess at home with the children and servants.
Countess Eva knew that those remaining in the castle walls were no match for the peasants. So she ordered the servants: “Open the gates. Give them food and drink — they are hungry and thirsty.”
The astounded peasants entered and sat down to the proffered feast. Thus, Neuleiningen Castle was saved during the Peasants Revolution.
One hundred years later, during the Thirty Years War, however, there was no Countess Eva and the castle did not fare so well. The castle was used to garrison soldiers and left in ruins by the end of that war in 1648.
It received its final blow by the French during the War of Palatinate Succession, 1689-97.
Today, Neuleiningen remains a beautiful medieval village with narrow cobblestone streets and alleyways, an old village well and water pump, the large cistern where village women washed their family clothes, and vestiges of the once-strong castle.
The houses offer a plethora of overflowing flower boxes. Doorways from the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s are adorned with sandstone carvings that tell whether the home belonged to a butcher, a carpenter or an architect. It was a popular technique used before townsfolk could read.
A visit to Neuleiningen is a journey back in time and a reminder that it pays to “take the road less-traveled by.”
Sandy Paige is a part-time tour guide for the Kaiserslautern USO. The USO is sponsoring a trip to Neuleiningen on Sunday.
