Dan Brown, search no more: I have found the perfect place for the next Da Vinci Code! A truly magical place where ley lines come together and the devil sleeps. Where the Japanese come to lie in an empty grave to re-energize and mighty treasures were hidden..

Today we visited the Externsteine. A sandstone (for sandstone is in fact all they have around here) rock formation in the middle of the Teutoburger Forrest. Those of you with a classical upbringing might recognize the name from the famous Roman defeat against the German barbarians under the leadership of Armenius. Eventough the Romans lost the battle, it was still named after their leader: the Varus Slacht. Which one could probably best translate into Varus’ slaughter. These German barabrians (which in fact were not German at all, since ‘Germans’ would only come into existance after the German Unification in 1871), were apparently quit spiritual and choose the Externsteine as one of their places of worship. There are several places of worship carved out amongst the giant stones.

As things went in Christian Europe: at some point pagianism was replaced by Christianity and all (or most or a lot at the veary least) holy sites were simply adapted to the new faith. The same happened with the Externsteine, which for example resulted in some beautiful carvings that tell the story of Jezus Christ.

Even to this day, the stones hold a magical to many peopel all over the world. The formation apparently lies on the same lay lines as Stone Henge, which of course gives it great energetic powers. Our tour guide told us that many people come to lie in the emty grave at the far end of the formation, to suck up all this energy. Even tough the grave was never actually used as such, I let this opportunity pass.

You may wonder wether this pirate has gone soft and spiritual, but no worries! With Christians come crusaders and with them comes of course.. treasure! The Externsteine are in fact a great place to hide your trease. As you can see in the picture below, there are multiple caves at the foot of the rock which can only be reached by water. But the biggest treasure of all is said to have been found in the chapel, just above the treasure caves: the holy grail.

Some part of the stones are actualy darker than others. Maybe mr. Scientist will give you his own explanation about how this came to be, but according to my sources the devil used to live in the caves underneath the Externsteine. One day an unwanted visitor came along, so the devil leaned against the rocks in order to make them fall over. Trying to put more power into it, the devil pushed his behind against the stones and right at that time he had to fart. Until this day you can see the damp places from the devil’s fart, combined with a print of his asshole, in the backside of the stones.