Search This Blog

These days the last sovereign ruler of the Duchy of Nassau is most famous - Well, as famous as a historical ruler of Luxembourg can be - for also being the first Grand Duke of Luxembourg from the Weilburg branch of the House of Nassau. Before ascending to the grand ducal throne at the age of 73 after the House of Orange-Nassau had died out in male line, Grand Duke Adolph (1817-1905) had ruled the Duchy of Nassau until it was annexed by Prussia in 1866. Since 1816, the capital of said Duchy of Nassau had been Wiesbaden and so the capital of what is now the German state of Hesse is also the location of a church Duke Adolph built in memory of his first wife, née Grand Duchess Elisabeth Mikhailovna of Russia. Only a year after their wedding in 1844, Duchess Elisabeth died shortly after giving birth to a stillborn daughter. After two years of mourning, Duke Adolph decided to build a church in memory his late wife and stillborn daughter. The Russian Orthodox Church of St Elizabeth, w...

Discovering Weissenfels: Nine Things to See When Visiting

August 28, 2022

* This post is part of a paid partnership with the cities of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz. * Weissenfels, deep in the heart of Saxony-Anhalt, is a city full of contradictions. Old vs. new, fallen into ruins vs. beautifully restored. All of this is represented most in the castle towering high above in the town south-west of Leipzig: Schloss Neu-Augustusburg . While half of it, at least from the exterior, shines in new splendour, the other half is falling into ruins. It is a fascinating contrast you will find all over this historically rich little town. Once the residence of the Duchy of Saxe-Weissenfels, it later became the number one shoe-manufacturing city of the German Democratic Republic. As so many places, the aftermath of unification left a lasting mark on Weissenfels with many especially young people moving away to find work elsewhere, and houses left empty. But you will find as many rays of hope here, so let's delve deeper into the things not to miss when visiting Weisse...

The Stuff Legends Are Made Of: The Mystery of the Amber Room

November 10, 2019

Few castles ever become legendary in themselves: Versailles, Neuschwanstein, maybe a handful more. Probably even fewer rooms of a castle share the same status and when German Baroque sculptor and architect Andreas Schlüter was commissioned to design a room made of amber for Schloss Charlottenburg in 1701, nobody knew what a legend it would become. Constructed by Gottfried Wolfram, master craftsman to the Danish court of King Frederik IV of Denmark, with the help of amber masters Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau from Danzig, the room wasn't even installed at its originally intended place but instead at the Stadtschloss in Berlin. It was at the city palace where Tsar Peter the Great first lay eyes on the creation and liked it. Eager to please, King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, gifted the room to his Russian counterpart. In return, he got a Russo-Prussian alliance against Sweden as well as a bunch of really tall guys, yes literally, for his army. Pretty good deal, e...

Powered by Blogger