CastleMemory: Schloss Charlottenburg

A very short walk down memory lane to yesterday
and a Sunday morning stroll through the park of Schloss Charlottenburg
- now without scaffolding on the front facade
and an autumnal view from the back!

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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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Burg Katz

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Not only for castle lovers, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley probably is one of Germany's most beautiful stretches. In 2002, the Rhine Gorge was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to a unique combination of geological, historical, cultural and industrial reasons. Over a distance of only 65 kilometres between the towns of Koblenz and Bingen, some 40 castles and fortresses are located on the hills above the Rhine River, one of them being the Burg Katz near the town of St. Goarshausen in Rhineland-Palatinate. Katz castle, located close to the legendary Loreley rock which marks the narrowest part of the Rhine River between Switzerland and the North Sea, owes is existence to the Count Wilhelm II of Katzenelnbogen. Built between 1360 and 1371, the castle was originally known as Burg Neukatzenelnbogen , which roughly translates to "new cat's elbow". However, it was soon colloquially called Katz (cat) castle in opposition to the nearby Burg Maus (mouse castle) own...
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CastleTalk #2: The German Royal- and Nobility, the Third Reich and July 20

View image | gettyimages.com Today is July 20, one of the most famous dates in German history. 71 years ago, a group of conspirators around Claus Schenk Graf (Count) von Stauffenberg tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Many of those surrounding Stauffenberg were also of noble descent and mainly based on their actions, there has long been the underlying assumption that much of the German nobility was against the Nazis, which they weren't. Well, first off: There wasn't the German nobility. Looking back, there are two main indicators for a noble family - or, as you'll see later, members of a noble family - to either be supporters of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) or to be against them. On the one hand, the wealth of the family seems to have played a role; on the other hand, their faith. The staunchly Catholic well-off royal and noble families from western and especially southern Germany often weren't closely associ...
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