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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Bang Pa-In Palace

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Whenever I am on holiday, I usually try to avoid tour group tours as much as possible. I'm just not a fan of the "Get out of the bus and hurry, we only have 15 minutes at this place!" kind of travel. One of the tours during my recent travels in Thailand though did lead me to a royal palace I had never heard about and I can thus share with you today. North of Bangkok and close to the old capital of Ayutthaya lies Bang Pa-In Palace. Nestled away in a traditional Thai small town, the palace complex and former summer residence of the royal family of Siam and later Thailand boasts a surprising number of European-style looking buildings and some of the statues could have been taken straight from Versailles.  Bang Pa-In Palace owes is existence to King Prasat Thong, who ruled Siam between 1629 and 1656. Legend has it that he was an illegitimate son of King Ekathotsarot, who was shipwrecked on the island in the Chao Praya River and had a child by a local woman. Other sour...
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CastleTalk #3: The House of Guelph, Its Branches and Their Last Name

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Schloss Marienburg One of the first German royal and noble families I got interested in was the House of Guelph. (I blame it on the fact that I grew up close to both Hanover and Brunswick and their main residence, Schloss Marienburg , actually being the castle of my childhood meaning that the first picture that comes into my mind when I think of castles is exactly die Marienburg as it is simply called where I am from.) However, something I never really understood their (alleged) last name: Prinz von Hannover Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg Königlicher Prinz von Großbritannien und Irland . (Yes, that's a loooong last name last name!) But let's start in the beginning (kind of) with some historical background: The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Braunschweig-Lüneburg) was created in the 13th century. It took its name from the two biggest towns of the territory at the time, Brunswick and Lüneburg. While the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg continued to exist and all branches of...
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CastleTalk #2: The German Royal- and Nobility, the Third Reich and July 20

View image | gettyimages.com Today is July 20, one of the most famous dates in German history. 71 years ago, a group of conspirators around Claus Schenk Graf (Count) von Stauffenberg tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Many of those surrounding Stauffenberg were also of noble descent and mainly based on their actions, there has long been the underlying assumption that much of the German nobility was against the Nazis, which they weren't. Well, first off: There wasn't the German nobility. Looking back, there are two main indicators for a noble family - or, as you'll see later, members of a noble family - to either be supporters of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) or to be against them. On the one hand, the wealth of the family seems to have played a role; on the other hand, their faith. The staunchly Catholic well-off royal and noble families from western and especially southern Germany often weren't closely associ...
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