Confessions of a Castleholic

Have you ever stumbled over a castle without meaning to? That's pretty much the story of Schoss Ahorn near Coburg and yours truly. I'm still not sure whether my navigation system simply got confused on the way from Schloss Hohenstein to Schloss Callenberg or if it has picked up on my love for castles instead and wanted to do me a favour. Because Schloss Ahorn is not along the most direct route between those two places but still it is where the GPS led me to go past - and after spotting this castle on the side of the road, I couldn't help but make a quick stop. Schloss Ahorn is located in a small village by the same name. While today's castle dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries, previous buildings located on the same site go back as early as the 11th century. It was actually part of the dowry of the Queen of Poland, born Richeza of Lotharingia. She inherited the estate from her own mother, Matilda, one of the daughters of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II and...

Confession of a Castleholic: I like castles more than castle ruins. So when Burgdame - visit her blog here - recommended to me to pay a visit to the ruins of Burg Ringelstein in Büren-Harth, I was a little hesitant as it was slightly out of the way of my latest castle adventure. But guess what happened? I loved it, it was a wonderful little piece of quiet during an otherwise very busy day including some eight other castles - more on all of them to come in the coming weeks, so make sure to stay tuned! The plans to build a castle on a mountain high above the Alme valley was firstly mentioned in 1383 though it isn't certain whether it was an entirely new castle or the reconstruction of a yet older, destroyed one of the same site. It was the Lords of Büren who were tasked with the construction of the new Burg to guard the outskirts of the Archbishopric of Cologne. Rather shortly after its completion, the castle was pledged to the Scharfenberg line of the House of Padberg un...

While the two surviving branches of the House of Nassau have been calling the Netherlands and Luxembourg their respective homes for decades and centuries now, their roots are located in an area which comprises of parts of today's German states of Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, and the Oberes Schloss in Siegen is witness to this rich history. It was here - not exactly the castle but an adjacent building - where Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens was born after his family had to flee the Spanish Netherlands for religious reasons and moved to Cologne where his father started an affair with Anna of Saxony, wife of Willem I of Orange, which he was imprisoned for in nearby Dillenburg and later placed under house arrest in Siegen. The Oberes Schloss , a medieval fortified hilltop castle, was firstly mentioned in 1259. There are, however, other documents which indicate that the castle had already existed in 1224 when Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne and Coun...