Confessions of a Castleholic

You have been to Madrid a couple of times and have seen all the royal palaces or simply like to venture off the beaten track and avoid the crowds? In today's post we have got you covered in both cases as we have a look at not one but three nobles palaces in the Spanish capital to discover. Palacio di Liria The Palacio di Liria is the only one of today's palaces still owned by a noble family, and one of Spain's most important noble families at that: the Dukes of Alba. Legends has it that they are so wealthy they can walk from the north of Spain to the south without taking a step off their own property. Whether that’s true or not, their Madrid residence - built between 1767 and 1785 on the orders of the third Duke of Berwick and Liria, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Colón, whose descendants also became Dukes of Alba - sure is a sight to behold. The Palacio di Liria was designed by Ventura Rodríguez in Neo-Classical style. Sadly, all but the facades were destroyed by fire during...

Truth be told, I haven't done a lot of castle hunting in Germany's most north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I have been to the Schloss in Schwerin and that's about it. As its name suggests, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern consists of two entities who do not share a lot of common history. Mecklenburg consists of the two former (Grand) Dukedoms of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin as well as the part of the former Prussian province of Pommern that stayed German after the Second World War. Mecklenburg was for most of its history somewhat of a backwater without much political influence. Friedrich II of Prussia actually went so far as to call the Mecklenburg royals living at Schloss Mirow plain, uneducated and hilarious after visiting during the 1730's and coined the derogatory term ' Mirokesen '. But - depending on how well you know marriage politics of the European monarchies prior to World War I - what are small and insignificant but reigning hous...

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...

Usually here at Confessions of a Castleholic , we are all about castle hunting. But in today's post, let's do some castle hiking! And where better to do it than in the most beautiful of Tyrols, South Tyrol? (No offense to Tyrol north of the Brenner Pass but you can hardly top scenic alpine mountains paired with palm trees.) Famous for its mild and sunny climate, South Tyrol - and especially Merano - has been a favourite destination for the bright, beautiful and wealthy for a long time. No other than Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi, was one of the first to holiday south of the Alps in what today is a German-speaking autonomous province in Northern Italy.  Thankfully, these days mere mortals are also able to travel to and holiday in beautiful South Tyrol. An abundance of hiking trails awaits you, but for any Castleholic combining a day in nature with discovering new historic sights seems the wait to go - and so I did. Passing the Passer via the Ponte Romano a...

A Baroque church in Brandenburg? Yes, that exists! Admittedly, the northern half of Germany isn't naturally blessed with a lot of beautiful Baroque churches. While there are plentiful in the southern Catholic half of the country, northern Germany is the heart of famously frugal and restraint Lutheran protestantism. So Kloster Neuzelle is quite the exception, a Baroque treasure on the German-Polish border hidden among a plethora of (Neo-)Gothic churches. Neuzelle Abbey was founded as "Nova Cella" in 1268 by Heinrich the Illustrious, Margrave of Meissen and Lusatia. The aim was to Christianise the recently conquered surrounding Sorbian lands. The first Abbey was built between 1300 and 1330 in typical local Gothic brick style. During the 15th century, it was repeatedly destroyed by the Hussites. As the monks refused to convert to the teachings of Jan Hus, they were banished or killed. Despite, Neuzelle Abbey survived the reformation as the only Catholic monastery in all of ...

Palazzo Reale di Torino The obvious place to start any castle hunting adventure in Turin is of course the Palazzo Reale (or Royal Palace if your Italian is even more limited than mine). Located in the north of the country, Turin isn't only the capital city of the Piedmont but also once served as the first capital of a united Italy between 1861 and 1865 thanks to the Dukes of Savoy, who come from the region and united the country. Many of the palaces mentioned in today's post are actually UNESCO World Heritage Sites as part of the "Residences of the Royal House of Savoy". The Palazzo Reale , located in the heart of Turin, is by far the biggest of them all. Originally built in the 16th century, it was later modernised in he 17th and 18th centuries according to designs by architects such as Daniel Seiter, Filippo Juvarra and Claudio Francesco Beaumont. In addition to the royal apartments and state rooms, the Palazzo Reale also includes the royal armory, art galleries an...

Why go to one castle if you can have three? The castles and palaces of Dornburg, all located within a few hundred metres, tower high above the Saale River in the German state of Thuringia offer exactly that possibility. All three of them were built during different periods of time and aren't actually the first castles to be located on this site. But instead of starting chronologically, let's first have a look at the newest and prettiest - yes, I'm shallow like that - of them all: the Rococo-Schloss . As the name suggests, the original Rococo-Schloss was built during the 18th century. In 1732, Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach commissioned architects to build him a palace in Dornburg. The occasion? A planned military parade. (I guess you can only end up eccentric when you take August the Strong as your inspiration.) However, something must have gone wrong at the time. Soon after it was finished, the palace was demolished due to construction defects. But we are looki...