CastleMemory: Schloss Cecilienhof

Visiting Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam, 
the home of the last crown prince of the German Empire, 
in 2005.

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Jagdschloss Holte

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Whenever I go on a castle hunting adventure, I try to find a few lesser known castles, oftentimes not open to the public, on the way to my actual destination. On my way to Paderborn to see Schloss Neuhaus, I stopped by in the little town bearing the name of today's castle and what I beauty I found! The sunny yellow of Schloss Holte in the town of Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock sure did bring a smile to my face and was perhaps my favourite non-open castle of the whole trip. The Renaissance- and Baroque-style moated castle dates back to the early 17th century. The area surrounding the castle originally belonged to the Counts of Rietberg. When they died out in male line, a previous castle located on the same site passed to Countess Walburgis of Rietberg and then her daughter Countess Sabina Catharina of East Frisia, who had married her uncle Count Johann III of East Frisia. Under the Treaty of Berum, Sabina Catharina was awarded the County of Rietberg. The couple built Schloss Holte betw…
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Schloss Rietzneuendorf

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At the end of a cow pasture, you can find all sorts of things. In the little village of Rietzneuendorf near Berlin, it is a castle. In fact, the cow pasture, with no cows standing on it when I visited, runs right across its access, which I thought may be a hint to its history (as there are also cow byres next to it) and being used as part of a people-owned enterprise during GDR times but sadly it's terribly hard to find anything about its history.  The village seems to have been founded in 1685 by Wilhelm von Stutterheim and then later sold to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I. Since then it was used as a farming area. Either around 1860 or 1885, sources vary about his, a castle was constructed on the site. Either around that time or in 1893 - again, sources vary - it received its current Neo-Renaissance appearance. The castle seems to have been used by the administration of the estate. While yours truly was able to dig up some names seemingly connected to it, none of them…
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Veste Coburg

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To say that Coburg has an abundance of castles and palaces may just be the understatement of the century, we have covered more than half a dozen of them on this blog alone in the past couple of months. One still missing? The one dubbed "the Crown of Franconia", the city's oldest castle, Veste Coburg. Towering high above the city and the surrounding land, the Veste was firstly mentioned in 1056 making its origins almost a thousand years old. It was in the year 1353, that Coburg fell to Margrave Friedrich of Meissen of the House of Wettin, who continued to own Veste Coburg until the end of the monarchy in 1918. The oldest still-existing part of the Veste is the Blauer Turm, or Blue Tower, dating back to 1230. At the time, the town was controlled by the Dukes of Merania. During the early 15th century, a triple contravallation was introduced to guard the fortress. Large parts of the castle's early structures were destroyed during two fires towards the end of the 15th an…
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