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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

The "Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds" or How the Bavarians Probably Got the Best Deal When the Monarchy Ended

January 05, 2020

The Great Hall of Schloss Nymphenburg They came to power during the 12th century in the days of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa - and on November 7, 1918, their head of the family was the first German King forced to abdicate. But in the end, the former Royal Family of Bavaria may just have gotten the best deals of all the formerly reigning families in Germany. You see, the German nobility is full of curious inheritance cases like the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg's or the Thurn und Taxis' . In addition to these internal family matters, there are also some interesting constructions between former German reigning family and the German state - or one of its federal states. Case in point: The Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds . It was established as a public foundation in 1923 within the framework of the apportionment of assets and liabilities between the Free State of Bavaria and their former royal family, the Wittelsbachs. Five years prior, in 1918, the monarchie

Where Queens Come From: Discovering Schloss Mirow

June 06, 2022

Truth be told, I haven't done a lot of castle hunting in Germany's most north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I have been to the Schloss in Schwerin and that's about it. As its name suggests, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern consists of two entities who do not share a lot of common history. Mecklenburg consists of the two former (Grand) Dukedoms of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin as well as the part of the former Prussian province of Pommern that stayed German after the Second World War. Mecklenburg was for most of its history somewhat of a backwater without much political influence. Friedrich II of Prussia actually went so far as to call the Mecklenburg royals living at Schloss Mirow plain, uneducated and hilarious after visiting during the 1730's and coined the derogatory term ' Mirokesen '. But - depending on how well you know marriage politics of the European monarchies prior to World War I - what are small and insignificant but reigning hous

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