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So you’re Ludwig II, it’s 1277 and you’ve just bought the village of Kaub from Philipp II. von Falkenstein-Münzenberg.
As part of the deal – apart from a halfway decent castle – is the right to tax every bastard and his brother anyone venturing down your side of the Rhine.
Nice work if you can get it and very lucrative.
Even more so when your village is granted a town charter in 1324.
And then you start thinking (by now it’s 1327, but Ludwig never was the sharpest knife in the drawer..)
“Oi! Those boaties aren’t paying me any tolls! I’ll put a stop to that – I’ll build a toll station in the middle of the river”
Duly done – 6 stories high.
Which REALLY got up the nose of the Pope and the local archbishop, who proceeded to make threatening noises along the lines that they’d be very interested in getting into the act as well, ta v. much.
Up went a 40 foot wall around the whole shebang.
Which seems to have been quite effective, because Pfalzgrafenstein (as it’s officially called; colloquially is gets by as the “Pfalz at Kaub”) has survived undamaged to this day.
Maybe as a direct result of its getting out of the toll collection business in 1876.
Maybe I should even rename this post “For whom the Pfalz tolls”…..
Mainz Daily Photo 
>I always enjoy your narrative like mine you write how you ant and it’s always entertaining along with a beautiful image.
>Crazier than owl _ _ _ _, is the way we’d say it but I’m adding Wayne’s to my stash. It’s more PC than mine. Now that’s a switch. I digress. JB if all history lessons had been as entertaining as yours, maybe I would still remember some of it, ANY of it.V
>No, just a fairly harmless count or Pfalzgraf
>You mean Mad King Ludwig, crazier than a sack full of weasels?Is this between Koblenz and Rudesheim? It looks familiar.