CastleMemory: Château de Laeken

Hello Belgium with a walk down memory lane
to the time in 2011 I visited Brussels and got a glimpse of
Château de Laeken or Kasteel van Laken,
depending on which language you prefer, 
home of the Belgian royal family.

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Why You Shouldn't Bother Watching "Sisi", the New TV Series By RTL

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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
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Sparkly Splendour: The Galerie d'Apollon and the French Crown Jewels at the Louvre

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When you think of the Louvre, you probably think of paintings and art - but it is also home to another kind of incredible craftsmanship: The French Crown Jewels. The Palais du Louvre , of course, served as a royal residence between the 14th and 18th centuries. And it is here in the  Galerie d’Apollon , a work of art in itself, where you can find a variety of tiaras and other bejeweled objects. The room owes its existence to King Louis XIV, who famously identified himself with the sun god Apollo. This gallery was one of his first building projects to represent that image. To create this masterpiece of architectural decoration, he summoned the greatest painters, gilders and sculptors of the day, who later also worked on the Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles .  But the focus of today's article shall be on all that glitters.   Personally, I always found royal jewellery a fascinating way to learn about history as oftentimes you can trace them through various royal families of
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The "Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds" or How the Bavarians Probably Got the Best Deal When the Monarchy Ended

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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
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