Confessions of a Castleholic

Schloss Reichenow COVID-19 is holding the world in its grip - and also severely altered my castle hunting plans. Right now, I was supposed to be in Japan discovering the Imperial Palace in Japan, the Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto and perhaps make a day trip to Himeji Castle. All of that will have to wait. COVID-19 rules in Germany in the past couples of weeks also meant that I wasn't able to discover any new castles and palaces around Berlin - and so I was all castled out in the sense that I had no more to write about. That has changed since last Friday. Rules are a tad more relaxed now and I actually spent many days of my current vacation castle hunting again. Now all I need to do is find the time to be kissed by the muse and write about them. So stay tuned, Confessions of a Castleholic will be back sometime soon. In the meantime, you can follow all my latest castle hunting adventures over on Instagram .

Time sure does fly when you are having fun! Can you believe it has been five years to this day that the first post was published here on Confessions of a Castleholic ? While I have been a bad, bad blogging person occasionally on the long road here abandoning the blog for weeks on end, I'm proud how far it has come along since the very beginning (when it was still called Castles & Co ).  So let met take this chance to say THANK YOU to all of you who have stopped by Confessions of a Castleholic , whether you do it often or have only come by once or twice. I wouldn’t be doing this without you. Don't forget to also follow Castleholic on Instagram for all my latest castle hunting adventures. Twitter offers you a bit of commentary of mine on current royals events. If you want to keep up with all the latest updates to the blog, like Confessions of a Castleholic on Facebook . New: You can also find Castleholic on Pinterest  now - I'm still figuring out the in and out...

What do you do when you have a blog about castles but no castles to write about? That’s a (very first world) dilemma this Castleholic is currently facing. The Residenzschloss in Dresden was the last of my castle adventures of 2018 to cover on this tiny space of the world wide web. So mind you, I haven’t yet run out of castles to visit yet and probably never will. Some estimates say that there are 15,000 to 25,000 castles in Germany alone. However apart from a handful of castles I visited prior the previous year and actually thought I would never write about because it has been such a long time, there is not much castle hunting to write about for me at this point. So what to do with Confessions of a Castleholic ? The obvious answer would be, of course: Visit more castles. Truth be told though, I have seen about every castle in the vicinity of where I live. Even those not open to the public. And January (and February) in Germany isn’t the best part of the year for castle huntin...

My dear fellow Castleholics, yours truly will go travelling tomorrow and so there won't be any updates to Confessions of a Castleholic for at least the next three weeks until after Pentecost. Please don't expect me to go on a writing spree immediately after I come back as I will probably need to nurse my jet lag. I can promise you this though: As I will be going to Thailand and Cambodia, there a lots of great new places and thus posts awaiting you once I'm back.  If you need your castle fix in the meantime, check out the Visited Places , there's quite a number of castles and palaces there conveniently arranged in alphabetical order for your enjoyment. You can also follow my travels on social media, updates to my  Instagram are the most likely to happen.

I don’t know about you but I love a good Q&A. Those short, bite-sized interviews are always my favorite pieces to read in magazines or on blogs. So I thought it would be a great idea to have one right here on Confessions of a Castleholic with the questions coming straight from you guys. Why? Because four years ago today, I published the very first post on this blog chronicling my visit to Schloss Wernigerode   so it's time to celebrate a little. Big thanks to everyone who shared their questions on Twitter, Facebook or via E-Mail. So without further ado, here are my answers to seven fun questions… Do you see yourself living in a palace? Frankly, no. I think I have read too much about how inconvenient life in a castle is and how difficult it is to keep them up to have that wish. I rather stick to visiting so I can fully enjoy them.  Which castle would you like to own? And why? If I had to pick one, I would probably go full Baroque splendour. Howeve...

It's been pretty quiet around here - but I have had very good reasons: The Royal Palace of Madrid, the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, the Royal Sight of El Escorial, the Alhambra in Granada and the Alcazár of Seville - these ones and a few more coming your way in the coming weeks starting this weekend. Stay tuned!

How to properly celebrate the third anniversary of your blog ( that actually accured three days ago )? I guess there are a bunch of very valid ways but I thought I would introduce you to three of my favourite castles of the past three years of Confessions of a Castleholic - and then we will have a giveaway all the way at the end, which includes not one but three books. (You see, the three is a recurring theme here...) Having visited more than 80 castles, palaces, churches, exhibitions and anything related to royal and noble splendour in the past three years, it actually isn't that easy to come up with your favourites it turns out. Why? Beauty comes in so many different ways, lays in the eyes of the beholder and even fading beauties can be the most interesting of places. In the end, I came up with three places that pretty much sum up what I love in a castles. And they would make a handsome threesome to own: A town house, a magnificent palace and a fairytale getaway high up in ...

...Confessions of a Castleholic was born. Schloss Wernigerode was the first castle adventure I ever covered on this blog. More than 80 castles, palaces, churches, exhibitions, museums and more have followed since. And then there are a few period dramas, talks to fellow Castleholics , castle memories from my pre-blogging years and whatever floats my mind that have kept us busy in the low-seasons.  I would have loved to bring you a very special post to mark this very special anniversary. But alas, both my private and professional lives have been extremely busy as of late and they will remain so for at least another few weeks if not months. So please be patient with me, we will have a special celebration this weekend but I haven't been able to finish it yet. (Also please excuse if formatting and all is off on this post as I'm typing this away on my phone while laying in a hotel bed. #toughlife) So stay tuned until the weekend and in the meantime I would like to thank ...

Out with the old, in with the new: The new year brings a few changes to Castles & Co Confessions of a Castleholic . After pondering it for a while, I finally decided to make the cut and change the name of this blog. But don't worry, everything else will be just the same and so the old design is staying, at least for now. Why the change? Castles & Co just didn't do it for me anymore, I simply wanted it to be a little more unique. Considering that I didn't post as much during the last few weeks and months, the time simply seemed right. Life simply took over for the second half of 2015. And while not being home for more than four nights straight between late June and November and staying in other places for weeks at a time due to work commitments did broaden my horizons for new royal places, it also limited my time to blog about them. I'm optimistic that that's going to change again in the future - pssst, I already prepared some posts - and so... Welc...

Due to me being kind of MIA lately and not being able to a) visit castles or exhibitions to write about and b) not being able to dig up the time and leisure to write about all the other places I did indeed visit during the past year, I thought I'd introduce a new feature to the blog called Documentaries & Co to keep us somehow going. At hopefully not too large intervals, I will post documentaries or otherwise interesting videos I enjoyed watching. Not all of them will be about castles per se but will all deal with the subject of royal- and nobility in some way. First up is a 90-minute documentary entitled " Hessens größte Adelsfamilien " - literally meaning Hesse 's biggest noble families though actually meaning most important families - featuring a lot of families ranging from untitled nobility with a simple von or zu in their name to some of the formerly reigning houses. I know that the documentary is in German and this blog's language is in Engli...

After toying with the idea for quite some time - Well, not all the time but again and again after visiting castles or other royal sights. - I have decided to finally get going on a new blog called "Castles & Co". If you are a regular royal watcher with an interest in either the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg or the Princely Family of Liechtenstein, you might already know me as one of the writers and editors of the Luxarazzi Blog .  My new brainchild "Castles & Co" will not be as busy and frequently updated as my main royal occupation but instead I will write about the royal travels that I do. As a royal watcher and history nerd, I occasionally visit royal sights such as castles, palaces and other places royals and nobles have and still live(d). Afterwards, I plan on writing about these visits on here to give you a chance to learn about these places and maybe decide whether they are worth a visit if or when you are nearby. As I'm a German living...