Many might think turning a 17th century castle into a top notch motorcycle destination is on the fringe of lunacy. Especially one that’s been sitting vacant for 10 years with overgrown vegetation, crumbling terraces, cracked walls, cob webs, peeling paint, broken and boarded windows, and buckled floors. The only occupants are nesting birds and few small and unknown animals –along with the rumors of a couple of ghosts. Maybe it is.

But we don’t view it like that. Team MotoSoul looks beyond what we can only see with our eyes and instead we dive deep into the heart of our sleeping beauty. We shift our focus from what she is today and envision what she will be tomorrow. Just like Cinderella, we’ll clean her up, drape her with pretties and she’ll be ready for the ball in no time!

We’ve recently collaborated with World Famous Inc, a Seattle based creative film works group, to create an artsy short video with MotoSoul at the center. World Famous creates award-winning films, commercials, music promos, animation and documentaries. We couldn’t be more excited for their arrival in Germany and getting the collaborative and creative juices flowing.

In preparation, we needed to be ready to hit the ground running, so task number one was to spruce our castle up a bit in preparation for filming.

So just how do you spruce up a castle? It’s not like cleaning your bedroom on a Saturday morning. This place is huge! Well first up, you create a plan. Second, you organize a work party. Yep, all 3 of us! Then a trip to Obi (Germany’s version of Home Depot) and a van full of stuff later, including a lawn mower, a bunch of brooms and tools, you roll up your sleeves and get to work. Our job was to stage a few rooms and make them shine.

Easy, peezy right? Not so much, but after 2 full days of worker bee mode, sore backs and a couple of slivers, we made a huge impact on MotoSoul and if I don’t say so myself, she looks fantastic! A special thanks to local artists Steffen Beiler and Ute Hartwig-Schultz who loaned us some incredible art for the shoot.

Our reward for all this hard work was a trip to Bad Lausick for a relaxing evening of sauna and spa. So if spring cleaning a castle wasn’t trippy enough, a visit to a German spa for us Americans was a new experience in that everyone, men, women and children are all buck naked. So when in Germany, act like a German. That’s another story in itself.

One of the coolest things about this project is that when we open the gates, people notice right away and come over to say hello. They are hearing about what’s happening at Schloss Mutzschen and excited for the possibilities. One visitor was a woman from Leipzig who reminisced about attending classes there when it was a school many years ago. Residents from the local and surrounding area are more than curious about these crazy Americans renovating this castle. The overwhelming response is “this is a great idea and just what we need here”. We’ve been greeted with happy smiles, congrats and well wishes. It’s amazing and we welcome every single one of them. We’re making friends!

There’s no doubt about the amount of work ahead of us; not only to renovate the castle, but also to create an inviting gathering space all can enjoy for years to come. You know the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, but I’d have to say that at this point we can look back and see we’re leaving a trail.