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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...

Schloss Wittgenstein

May 17, 2014

Firstly mentioned as Widenkindigstein in 1187, the origins of Schloss Wittgenstein located in the south-Westphalian town of Bad Laasphe were owned by the House of Battenberg who tried to secure their holdings on the upper Lahn river with the help of the castle. In 1190 Count Werner I of Battenberg and Wittgenstein signed a contract with the Archbishop of Mainz, Konrad I of Wittelsbach, to sell the castle to the Archbishopric though it was agreed that the castle would be given back to Count Werner as a fiefdom. However, the Archbishop failed to pay the whole sum of money promised to the count and so the castle remained in his family's hands though not for long. On September 2nd, 1223, Count Werner I's three sons, Werner II, Widekind I and Hermann, sold the castle to the new Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried II of Eppstein. In turn the sons received Wittgenstein castle back as a fiefdom. About 15 years later the historical House of Battenberg - which shouldn't be confu...

Kaiservilla (Bad Ischl)

August 27, 2017

"Earthly heaven" - that's how Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria described his summer holidays in Bad Ischl. His own fate was inevitably connected the small spa town in the Austrian Salt Chamber region ( Salzkammergut ). After having suffered five miscarriages during the first few years of her marriage, his mother, Archduchess Sophie, went to Bad Ischl to drink the waters who were thought to increase fertility. She bore five sons who were thus sometimes nicknamed "the salt princes". It was also in Bad Ischl that the Emperor fell in love with his cousin and future wife Elisabeth, better known as Sisi. The couple spent almost every following summer at their home in the Salzkammergut : The Kaiservilla in Bad Ischl. The large mansion was gifted to the couple as a wedding present by the Emperor's mother. In 1853 after their engagement, Archduchess Sophie had purchased it from physician Eduard Mastalier. He, in turn, had bought it from a notary called Jose...

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