Confessions of a Castleholic

Time to catch up on another royal place I visited an eternity ago - and again yesterday together with the lady behind History of Royal Women . Do you recall that time almost three years ago when I wrote about Schloss Herrenhausen , an exhibition called "The Hanoverians on Britain's Throne 1714-1837" and the Berggarten in Hanover? Well, there was a post missing in that kind of mini-series: The one on the Großer Garten (Great Garden) of the Herrenhausen Gardens. Considering that spring is finally here and summer fast approaching, it's time to have a look at one of the places you should definetely visit if you are in Hanover during the summer months. (Note: The pictures featured in this post were taken during summer time, we will have seperate posts showing the garden during different times of the year.) The Herrenhausen Gardens, or Herrenhäuser Gärten , are one of the main attractions of the Lower Saxon capital with the Baroque-style Großer Garten (Great ...

Enchanted wells, secret tunnels and a Gothic palace - the Quinta da Regaleira is like stepping right into a fairytale. The estate is located near the historic centre of Sintra, the city near Lisbon in Portugal where even the description "overflowing with castles" may just be the understatement of the century. Along with all the castles and palaces also come a bunch of wonderful parks - and the Quinta da Regaleira certainly is the most enchanting of them. The land that is now the Quinta da Regaleira had many different owners over the years. The man who gave the park its current fantastic appearance was António Augusto de Carvalho Monteiro, an entomologist born to Portuguese parents in Rio de Janeiro, who had inherited a huge family fortune, which he enlarged in Brazil by selling coffee and precious stones. He returned to Portugal, earned a law degree and became a well-known collector and bibliophile. In 1892, he bought the estate belonging to the Viscountess of R...

About every country has a palace deemed its Versailles and Portugal's Versailles is the Palácio Nacional de Queluz . Located in Lisbon's suburb by the same name, the palace of Queluz is one of the largest Rococo building complexes in Europe. The palace was designed for the future King Pedro III of Portugal, second son of King João V, by architects Mateus Vicente de Oliveira and Manuel Caetano de Sousa. Works on the palace known today started in 1747. The history of the building, however, began as a hunting lodge, which was owned by the Marquis de Castelo Rodrigo, a diplomat and statesman to Felipe II of Spain, who also ruled as King of Portugal. After Portuguese independence from Spain in 1640, the hunting lodge became part of the royal estate under King João IV. It was set aside as a property for the second son of a monarch and so the aforementioned Dom Pedro inherited the pile of land and building in 1742. Construction on the new palace started five years later. The...

If the walls of Schloss Blankenburg could talk, they would have quite a story to tell. A story of Europe's oldest noble family , of expropriation, of socialism, of years of uncertainty and of a group of people trying to save the castle these walls form. The story of this castle goes all the way back to the middle of the 11th century, when a castle was erected on a hill named Blanker Stein (sheer stone) soon giving its name to the settlement Blankenburg nearby. The Blankenburg was firstly mentioned in 1123 with the suzerainty belonging to the future Holy Roman Emperor Lothar III. Five years later, Blankenburg was given as a fiefdom to Count Poppo I of Blankenburg, later Count of Regenstein-Blankenburg, of the Reginbodonen noble family. In 1162, Poppo divided his county for his two sons: While Konrad received Burg Regenstein , Siegfried received Blankenburg. Already in 1137, the year of death of Lothar III, the suzerainty had changed to the Guelph family as Heinrich the Proud...