Confessions of a Castleholic

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...

Sorry for being kinda M.I.A. lately. Lucky for you (and me) that action also included seeing a few castles. Case in point: Burg Regenstein . The ruined castle lies about three kilometres north of Blankenburg, a small town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Surrounded by lush green forests, the castle was built on a 294 metre high sandstone rock towering over the surrounding area. Once a strong fortress, only a number of internal rooms carved into the stone as well as parts of the keep remain to this day.  Burg Regenstein was firstly mentioned in 1169. Already seven years prior, Konrad, son of Count Poppo I of Blankenburg, was mentioned as Comes de Regenstein for the first time. However, it was Count Albrecht II of Regenstein who made the castle kind of famous: During the 1330's, he had various disputes with the Bishop of Halberstadt and the Abbess of Quedlinburg, two of the nearest towns. He was later immortalised in the ballad Der Raubgraf (the robber count) by Gottf...

Today's castle I visited last spring and probably is not very familiar to you though it does have some very royal connections. The ruined castle complex Ginsburg lies high above the constituent community of Grund of the town of Hilchenbach in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. To be honest, it probably isn't a place that you would go to for itself but friends and I included it in a longish Sunday hike and it was a nice place to take in some of the scenery around. The Ginsburg is believed to have been built between the years 1220 and 1240 by Count Heinrich II of Nassau, the most common ancestor in Nassau-line of the heads of the two branches of the House of Nassau , King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg. The Counts of Nassau used the building as a border fortress against the Counts of Wittgenstein and the Sauerland properties of the Electorate of Cologne. The Ginsburg was firstly mentioned...