Discovering the World's Most Splendorous Sights One Palace at a Time
CastleView: Lucy Worsley's Empire of the Tsars
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Photo: BBC 4
So, I was sick the other weekend* and I watched some documentaries and I found "Lucy Worsley's Empire of the Tsars" by BBC. I only know little about Romanov history, or rather some parts of it, but am in now way anywhere near to knowledgable, so the three one-hour parts of the documentary gave a nice overview.
Reinventing Russia
Age of Extremes
Road to Revolution
*Yep, I pretty much only get sick during the weekends, not the weeks - I'm every employer's dream.
Hi there! I watched a series today that was so bad it made be write the first blog post in one and a half years. Will I write more again in the future? I don't know, I guess we'll see. In the meantime, follow all my latest castle adventures over on Instagram . See you there! Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the immortal Sisi, has inspired the imagination of the people for more than a century now. Her life, her love, her tragedies, her death. Adored, free spirited and one of the original royal IT girls. A face that could launch a thousands ships, well, bring peace to two feuding nations by simply being her charming self. A woman that, 120 years after her death, can still draw crowds and be the foundation stone of what seems like half the tourist industry of several regions. (Okay, that might have been slightly exaggerated but have you ever been to Vienna and seen the souvenir shops?) So it's not too surprising that time and time again, cinema and TV productions have tried to ca...
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...
Never heard of Schloss Hohenfels in Coburg? You are excused, neither had I before doing some research for my latest castle adventure to the residential town of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. And you would still be excused if you hadn't heard of it even if you have visited as well for the Schloss is located rather on the outskirts of the city and also today a school. Its origins are very royal though. In 1837, Duke Ernst Alexander of Württemberg, younger brother of Duchess Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, wife of Ernst II, commissioned architect Balthasar Harres, a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, to draw up plans for a residential palace for himself. After Harres left Coburg a year later, it was Vincenz Fischer-Birnbaum who finished the construction on the Classicist Schloss . Duke Ernst Alexander later fell in love and married opera singer Natalie Eschborn a.k.a. Frassini a.k.a. Baroness of Grünhof. His brother-in-law Duke Ernst II had persuaded her to come and...