Confessions of a Castleholic

A guest post by Kim-Lisa. The original Schloss Stolzenfels was erected between 1244 and 1259 as a fortification by the Prince-Bishop of Trier. Its only use was to protect the toll stations on the left bank of the Rhine river. In addition, the original castle was also built to save the power of the Prince-Bishop of Trier because the Prince-Bishop of Mainz had built another castle on the right bank of the Rhine, Burg Lahneck . In 1689, Schloss Stolzenfels was totally destroyed in the so called Nine Years' War (or Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg in German). The ruined castle became property of the city of Koblenz in 1802. The ruin was given as a present to the then Crown Prince of Prussia, Friedrich-Wilhelm, in 1823. He had already travelled along the Rhine in 1815 and had been fascinated by the beauty and history of the region. Friedrich-Wilhelm rebuilt the castle in the spirit of Romanticism as a Gothic Revival palace. To do so, he hired the famous garden and landscape a...

Not only for castle lovers, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley probably is one of Germany's most beautiful stretches. In 2002, the Rhine Gorge was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to a unique combination of geological, historical, cultural and industrial reasons. Over a distance of only 65 kilometres between the towns of Koblenz and Bingen, some 40 castles and fortresses are located on the hills above the Rhine River, one of them being the Burg Katz near the town of St. Goarshausen in Rhineland-Palatinate. Katz castle, located close to the legendary Loreley rock which marks the narrowest part of the Rhine River between Switzerland and the North Sea, owes is existence to the Count Wilhelm II of Katzenelnbogen. Built between 1360 and 1371, the castle was originally known as Burg Neukatzenelnbogen , which roughly translates to "new cat's elbow". However, it was soon colloquially called Katz (cat) castle in opposition to the nearby Burg Maus (mouse castle) own...