This was a spontaneous trip to the roughly 18.000 inhabitants town Altena. Where the heck is Altena, you ask, and why should anyone go there? These are very good questions. The answers may be surprising…
Altena is located in North Rhine Westphalia (Sauerland, Nordrhein Westfalen), and is a small but very charming town built along the river Lenne. You have never heard of it? Neither did we or anyone we talked to before our 4 days journey. How did we end up there? While planning a work trip, Spreepferdchen checked the website for youth hostels in Germany. All German hostels are ordered by alphabet of the town where they are located in, with a picture of the hostel. On top of the list, “Altena” appeared with a too-cool-to-be-true picture of a castle. “WHAAAAAT, there is a castle hostel?!”, Spreepferdchen asked herself. Turned out, the 12th century Altena castle hosts the very first youth hostel in the world, founded in 1914. As both of us totally are into old castles, and Döner Box also likes hostels (for whatever reason), we did not need any further arguments for booking a trip to Altena. We had no clue, what to expect from this trip…
From the train station Altena (Westfalen), you can directly oversee most of the lovely town along the river, and when you look up, the castle is very prominent. You feel immediately set back in time. Altena itself may not have much to offer apart from the castle. Even its inhabitants are underwhelmed: “What are you doing in Altena?” “We are here for holidays. Can you recommend something?” “Ehm…..the castle….otherwise, there is nothing….”. But the cuteness of the place itself is worth going, and there are some unexpected pearls to find….
For these “pearls” inside Altena see the articles:
From Altena, you can also make a trip to the dripstone cave Dechenhöhle in nearby Iserlohn. You can take a 1 hour guided tour through the cave (so far we know, only available in German). Taking photos is not allowed. The cave also has small museum attached to it about caves, prehistoric life in caves, cave science, minerals etc. (also all in German). We enjoyed visiting the cave and the museum very much. For both of us, it was the first visit of a dripstone cave though, so we don’t have any comparison.
If you enjoy pools or are with children, you can also visit AquaMagis in Plettenberg. It’s a big fun pool with several water slides and everything children and kidded-heart adults like. It also has a separated sauna area, but we did not use it, so we don’t know how it is. The pool is not particularly better than other places of this kind, but when you are in the area anyway….
Altena, Iserlohn, and Plettenberg are easily accessible by public transport/train.
