CastleView: The Real Versailles

Photo: BBC
After the fictional "Versailles" over the weekend, let's have a look at "The Real Versailles" - or at least a BBC documentary by that name. The 2016 documentary actually takes the TV series and digs deeper into it's historical background. Recommended not only as a complimentary view to the TV series!

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Ernst-August vs. Ernst-August: A Family Feud

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What it's about: Schloss Marienburg On Thursday and Saturday, Hereditary Prince Ernst-August of Hanover will first civilly and then religiously marry his long-time girlfriend Ekaterina Malysheva in, you guessed it, Hanover. Local, national and even international media have been covering the lead-up to the wedding, with a very special article popping up over the weekend: Handelsblatt writes that the groom's father, the even more (in)famous Prince Ernst-August of Hanover, has set his son an ultimatum for Friday of this week to give back several family possessions he received in 2004. Otherwise Ernst-August (the father) will, in his capacity as head of the House of Guelph, deny his son consent to his marriage. So, what happened? It has long been an open secret that the relationship between the two Ernst-Augusts is quite rocky to non-existent. Many have speculated that Ernst-August Senior will actually not be among the guests for Ernst-August Junior's wedding. Back w...
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Würzburger Residenz

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If you searched for a list of Germany's top ten most famous or beautiful castles, it would be a pretty save bet to assume to find the Würzburger Residenz  on said list. In fact it was one of the places on my royal bucket list I published about one and a half years ago. While I did manage to cross it off the list since, I can't say it was an unequivocally wonderful experience. Don't get me wrong, the Residence Palace in Würzburg is a beautiful place but my visit once more proved that the most famous castles usually do not make for the best viewing experiences. But first, the history: Before the construction of the Residenz , the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg resided in the Festung Marienberg - which we will also cover someday on Castleholic - on a hill west of the Main river until the early 18th century. It was Count Johann Philipp Franz of Schönborn (1719–24) who moved the court from the fortress to a palace erected at the very beginning of the 18th century, the pre...
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Schloss Hohenfels

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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...
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