Confessions of a Castleholic

Florence is perhaps one of the handful of places every person should visit during their lifetime. Dubbed the "Cradle of the Renaissance", it is often considered to be the place where the transformation from the Middle Ages to modern Western civilization started. Between all the museums, the ginormous amounts of art and the plentiful of churches to see, palaces may not be among the top spots on your list of places to see in the city. However... When you think of Florence, you automatically also think of the Medici and unfathomable wealth. They were the bankers, rulers and art patrons behind much of what makes Florence so unique until this day. Because it was them who commissioned artists such as da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli and Donatello to work for them to forever inscribe their family's name into the history books. Palazzo Medici-Riccardi The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi is actually the place where it all started. It was the home of the Medici family between the second...

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...

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...

Above the Kaiservilla in the hilly park surrounding the summer residence of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and his wife Elisabeth, lies a little palace by the name of Marmorschlössl . It was the hideaway of the Empress, better known as Sisi, when in Bad Ischl. (And there's no better after-Christmas treat considering my annual Christmas obsession with the Sissi movies .) While Schlössl is the minimisation of Schloss , Marmor (marble) comes from the material used called Untersberger Marmor , though it was actually a form of limestone.  It was at Bad Ischl were both Franz Joseph and Elisabeth enjoyed spending time. Sisi, who otherwise despised her life as an Empress, felt reminded of her childhood at Schloss Possenhofen in Bavaria, and could go hiking and riding as much as she liked. The Kaiservilla had been a gift by the Emperor's mother and the couple spent almost every summer in the Salt Chamber region near Salzburg. The Imperial Villa is surrounded by a large Englis...

"Earthly heaven" - that's how Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria described his summer holidays in Bad Ischl. His own fate was inevitably connected the small spa town in the Austrian Salt Chamber region ( Salzkammergut ). After having suffered five miscarriages during the first few years of her marriage, his mother, Archduchess Sophie, went to Bad Ischl to drink the waters who were thought to increase fertility. She bore five sons who were thus sometimes nicknamed "the salt princes". It was also in Bad Ischl that the Emperor fell in love with his cousin and future wife Elisabeth, better known as Sisi. The couple spent almost every following summer at their home in the Salzkammergut : The Kaiservilla  in Bad Ischl. The large mansion was gifted to the couple as a wedding present by the Emperor's mother. In 1853 after their engagement, Archduchess Sophie had purchased it from physician Eduard Mastalier. He, in turn, had bought it from a notary called Jose...

Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial - what a name! Located northwest of Madrid, the Royal Sight has functioned as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university and hospital over the years. And believe me, no picture does it justice just how massive this place is. In fact, El Escorial is nothing less than the world's largest Renaissance building featuring one of the most beautiful libraries I have ever laid eyes on though unfortunately you aren't allowed to take pictures inside the complex. When King Felipe II of Spain took home victory in the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy against King Henri II of France on the Feast of Saint Lawrence in 1557, he swore to erect a monument dedicated to the saint. The King's astrologers chose the small village of El Escorial in the hills near Madrid as the perfect location. The works began on April 23, 1563 and lasted for more than 20 years. Felipe II appointed the Spanish architect Juan Bautista ...

Alhambra - the name alone let's you think of a thousand and one nights, splendorous architecture and the magical palaces. Nestled on the foot of the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain, it was here that the Nasrid dynasty wrote the last chapter of the history of the Muslim rule over the Iberian peninsula. In 1492, Granada was the last of the Moorish kingdoms captured by Christian forces thus ending 700 years of influence over the region. Literally the red castle (Al-Hamra) due to the colour of its walls, the Alhambra is located on a hill above the city of Granada. Its history dates back to the 9th century when a small fortress by the name of Ma’qil Ilbira built on the ruins of a Roman fortress was located on the site. While the castle was expanded, Granada was still a historical backdrop at the time. This changed when Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr, the founder of the Nasrid dynasty, was forced to flee from Jaén to avoid persecution by King Ferdinand III ...