Confessions of a Castleholic

It's the second week of January and this Castleholic has managed to achieve something she never has before: I have written about all the castles and palaces I visited during the previous year. Procrastinator no more! (I wish...) That kind of brings us to a problem though about the future upkeep of this space on the world wide web though that is the matter for another post... First, let's learn more about the history of the place that served as the residence of the electors and later kings of Saxony for centuries, shall we? We shall. While the future Residenzschloss was firstly mentioned in the 13th century, the expansion of the castle into a princely residence started around the year 1400 under Margrave Wilhelm I of Meissen, known as 'the One-Eyed'. During the mid to late 15th century, the structure was further extended according to the plans of master builder Arnold von Westfalen and turned into an enclosed four-wing castle. The Saxon rulers continued to enhan...

Do you remember that I was struggling to calculate the number of castles I visited in 2018 due to various reasons including a fancy garden house? Well, here it is! And was I right or was I right?! The Chinese House, also sometimes called Chinese Tea House, is a garden pavilion in Sanssouci Park in Potsdam not far from the palace of the same name  and a fancy one it is.  The Chinese House owes its existence to King Friedrich II of Prussia, famously known as 'the Great'. The King commissioned Johann Gottfried Büring to design an ornamental garden house to adorn his gardens about 700 metres southwest of Schloss Sanssouci . For his designs Büring borrowed ideas from the Rococo architecture favoured by the King and took inspiration from Chinese architecture. Chinoiserie, a European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, was popular at the time. The Chinesisches Haus was modelled after the Le Tréfle garden   pavilion in t...

Scandalous things are happening in Castleholic land: Turns out that while I have been to Salzburg a handful of times, I had never even considered visiting the Residenz for some strange reason. Inexplicable. The Festung, ja . Mirabell, ja . But it took my until last summer to finally get to the residential palace of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg. And while this is a visually fairly uninteresting post - photos are not allowed to be taken inside the Residenz  and thus I added a few of the Cathedral it sits next to - you have to trust me that it is a surprising beauty! The Salzburger Residenz lies in the heart of the historic district and was once the Baroque power centre of the region nestled between Habsburg Austria and Wittelsbach-ruled Bavaria. The first mention of the Residence dates back to the year 1232. However, that first residential palace was later demolished under Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (1587–1612) in favour of a late-Renaissance style new b...

Before we head into a fun filled new year of castle hunting, it's time to have a quick look back at the year in castle adventures that was 2018. I did the maths and I think I visited about 35 castles and palaces. I say 'about' because I'm not entirely sure whether I have forgotten any or what technically counts as a small palace or what's just a fancy garden house. You can visit all minus a handful of them right here , because still have three to write about yet in the new year. So what were my highlights? Certainly the Grand Palace in Bangkok and Bang Pa-In Palace just north of Thailand's capital, my first two non-European palaces I ever visited. Both of them combine European and Thai architecture in fascinating ways and I wish I could have seen the interior of any of the major structures but unfortunately there were all closed at the time I visited. I also managed to cross a long-time wish off my list of castles to visit: Schloss St. Emmeram in Re...

Dresden famously is the Baroque jewel on the Elbe river, its architecture being influenced by the style of the 17th and early 18th century more than any else. The Coselpalais is just another stunning example of that. Located right next to the Church of Our Lady (or Frauenkirche ), it bears the name given to one of the most (in)famous mistresses in German history. Anna Constantia von Brockdorff, married Countess of Hoym and later created Countess of Cosel, was the mistress of August the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, for a couple of years before she fell into disgrace and  was banished from the Saxon court and imprisoned. She, however, did bear King and Elector August, the original mastermind behind Baroque Dresden, three children including a son called Friedrich August just like his father. It was Friedrich August who commissioned architect Julius Heinrich Schwarze to build a residential palace in 1762 after purchasing several houses located o...

High above Schloss Hardenberg lies a castle of a similar name: Burg Hardenberg , the ruins of a 12th century rock castle that was abandoned by the Hardenberg family at the beginning of the 18th century in favour of the more comfortable Schloss . The Hardenbergs, who were later created barons and, in 1778, counts, had been the owners of the Burg since 1287 when they received it as a fiefdom by the Guelph rulers. The castle had originally been built by the Archbishopric of Mainz to oversee two trading routes and previously been given as a fiefdom to the Lords of Rosdorf. At the time the Hardenbergs came into the possession of the Burg they actually weren't yet known by that name but instead as de Novalis. Instead , the name Hardenberg stems from the name of the mountain this castle is located on. The family's claim to their new castle was solidified in 1345 when the Archbishop of Mainz confirmed the fiefdom of the Burg and the village of Nörten originally granted by ...

Not far from Schloss Gieboldehausen lies another little known castle built for the Lords of Minnigerode: Schloss Wollershausen . The moated castle in the tiny village of the same name was built between 1732 and 1735 by Ludwig von Minnigerode. While his family had owned the estate since 1398 when they received Wollershausen as a fiefdom from the Guelph rulers, Ludwig only got his hands on the property after an inheritance feud lasting over two decades a few years previously.  He decided to demolish a previous castle built around the year 1600 that had fallen into disrepair located not far from where the current castle stands. The construction of the new castle, however, turned out to be a costly endeavour as the Schloss stands in the middle of a marshland thus making it necessary to stablilise the underground by introducing large logs into the grounds. Nonetheless,  Schloss Wollershausen remained in the hands of the Minnigerode family until 1932 and ha...

Hardenberg is a fairly well-known name in the neck of the woods I am from. The noble family from Lower Saxony have owned Burg Hardenberg in a small town called Nörten-Hardenberg since at least 1287 and were later created barons and, in 1778, counts. They served Guelph and Prussian rulers or became otherwise famous politicians, their Schloss in Neuhardenberg was the place for conspirative meetings in preparation of the 20 July plot  to kill Hitler - and in more recent developments, the Hardenbergs now own the second largest liquor producing company in Germany and their Korn with the hog is pretty famous. A lot less known: They also own a pretty nice palace. In fact, Schloss Hardenberg may just be the palace I would chose to live in if I had the choice (once I get over the fact that I don't really want to live in a castle to begin with - cold, draught, in case you were wondering). Mind you, I have never seen it from the inside as it is a private residence but I q...

Rounding off our series of posts on the plentiful palaces of Potsdam - because I will need to do some more castlehunting before when can delve deeper into the other handful of Prussian palaces in the capital of the German state of Brandenburg - is the Orangerieschloss , also known as the Orangery Palace. The palace owes its existence to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and was originally planned to be part of a larger ensemble. Friedrich Wilhelm, known as "the Romantic on the Throne", wished for a triumphal road imitating a Roman via triumphalis leading some two kilometres through Potsdam. He intended to incorporate several already existing buildings as well as temples, palaces and viaducts. Already during his time as Crown Prince, Friedrich Wilhelm studied the Renaissance style and later travelled to Italy drawing inspirations from both. However, because of the political unrest of the period and lack of funding, the project was never fully carried out. The Orangerieschlos...