CastleMemory: Burg Königstein

Let's have a walk down memory lane to the year 2013
and a visit to Burg Königstein in the Taunus region of Germany.

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Schloss Lübben

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Well... Hi there, long time no post, I know. Truthfully yours truly was a bit castled out the last few weeks. I actually still visited a bunch of them - as always you can follow my latest adventures on Instagram - but with lots of other things going on, I just didn't feel like editing pictures, writing and everything else that goes into this tiny space on the world wide web. But with the big C-word holding all our lives in a tight grip at the moment, I thought that you and me both could use some escapism. And so in today's post, we are having a closer look at a castle I visited in the fall of last year. Schloss Lübben may not be the most visually remarkable castle featured on this blog but it definitely has the most curious castle tower of them all even beating the white tower of Schloss Bad Homburg. Frankly, you don't even really recognise it as a tower at first glance as it is an entirely separate building. (Can you spot it in the right photo above? Yep, that big buildin…
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Royal Wedding in Hanover: The Guests (Part 1)

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Today in Hanover, Hereditary Prince Ernst-August of Hanover married Ekaterina Malysheva. Here are some of the guests, in no particular order... Margrave Max and Margravine Valerie of Baden, née Archduchess Valerie of Austria, with their son Prince Michael and his wife Princess Christina of Baden.  Count Friedrich of Ortenburg and his wife Countess Christine, née Baroness of Wangenheim, with their sons Max and Albert, who were two of the page boys. Count Karl of Solms-Laubach and I presume one of his daughters.  Andrés and Lauren Santo Domingo. Another picture of  Andrés and Lauren Santo Domingo.  Prince Georg-Friedrich of Prussia and his wife Princess Sophie, née Princess of Isenburg. Another picture of the couple. Prince Heinrich of Hanover, uncle of the groom, his wife Princess Thyra, née von Westernhagen, and their sons Prince Albert and Prince Julius.  Another picture of Prince Heinrich and Princess Thyra of Hanover. Prince Andreas and Princess Alexandra of Leiningen. She is a bo…
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CastleTalk: The Curious Case of the Thurn und Taxis Inheritance

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The death of Richard Fürst zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg earlier this week saw a surge in interest in my take on the (in)famous will of inheritance looming over the family. One point about the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg inheritance that many seem to find especially curious is the fact that the late Prince Richard never actually owned his family's fortune but that it was instead passed from his father - who went missing during World War 2 - to a yet unborn grandson - who was born in 1969 - (or anyone else, really, who would inherit after Prince Richard). The German nobility, however, isn't short of interesting inheritance constructions - case in point: The Thurn und Taxis inheritance.
The Thurn und Taxis family isn't just famous for their fabulous wealth, estimated at around $ 2.5 billion today - even though Princess Gloria of Thurn und Taxis says it less than a billion - but also for their lifestyle to go along with it. In fact, Princess Gloria of Thurn und Taxis may si…
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