Top 10 most beautiful castles in Germany

10.Moritzburg Castle

Moritzburg Castle is a Baroque palace located about 13 kilometres northwest of the Saxon capital, Dresden. The castle has four round towers and lies on a symmetrical artificial island.
It is named after Duke Moritz of Saxony, who had a hunting lodge built there between 1542 and 1546. The surrounding woodlands and lakes have been a favourite hunting area of the electors and kings of Saxony.
The interior of the castle is furnished with examples of opulent baroque decor from the time of Augustus the Strong. The collection of red deer antlers is one of the most important of its kind. The castle's largest collection of antlers is shown in the dining room with 71 trophies, most of them between 270 and 400 years old.... view details

9.Wachsenburg Castle

Wachsenburg Castle was originally built in the 10th century, but it was extensively reconstructed in the 17th and 19th century.
During its history, Wachsenburg Castle has had its fair share of troubles. In 1441 a notorious robber baron took control of the castle and made it his base for his raids on the merchants of Erfurt.
The well-preserved castle (most recently restored in the 1990s) now houses a museum, a hotel and a restaurant.... view details

8.Wartburg

The Wartburg is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a 410 meters (1,350 ft) precipice, overlooking the town of Eisenach. In 1999, UNESCO added Wartburg Castle to the World Heritage List.
It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament of the Bible into German, the site of the Wartburg festival of 1817 and the supposed setting for the legendary Sangerkrieg (a contest among minstrels at the Wartburg castle in 1207).
It was an important inspiration for Ludwig II when he decided to build Neuschwanstein Castle. Wartburg is the most-visited tourist attraction in Thuringia after Weimar. Although the castle today still contains substantial original structures from the 12th through 15th centuries, much of the interior dates ...... view details

7.Hohenzollern Castle

Hohenzollern Castle is the ancestral seat of the imperial House of Hohenzollern. The third of three castles on the site, it is located atop Berg Hohenzollern, a 234-metre bluff rising above the towns of Hechingen and Bisingen in the foothills of the Swabian Alps of central Baden-Wurttemberg.
The present structure was built between 1846 and 1867 as a family memorial by Hohenzollern scion King Frederick William IV of Prussia. The design was based on English Gothic Revival architecture and the Chateaux of the Loire Valley.
Among the historical artifacts of Prussian history contained in the castle are the Crown of Wilhelm II, some of the personal effects of King Frederick the Great, and a letter from US President George Washington thanking Hohenzollern descendant Baron von Steuben for his service in ...... view details

6.Eltz Castle

Eltz Castle is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier. It is still owned by a branch of the same family (the Eltz family) that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. The castle has never been destroyed.
The castle is surrounded on three sides by the Elzbach River, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle and it is positioned on a 70-metre rock spur. Eltz Castle is a popular tourist destination; among others, visitors can view the treasury, with gold, silver and porcelain artifacts and the armory of weapons and suits of armor.
From 1965 to 1992, an engraving of Eltz Castle was used on the German 500 Deutsche Mark note. ... view details

5.Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg Castle is a ruin in Germany and landmark of Heidelberg. The castle ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps.
The castle has only been partially rebuilt since its demolition in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is located 80 metres (260 ft) up the northern part of the Konigstuhl hillside, and thereby dominates the view of the old downtown.
The city of Heidelberg has, at the beginning of the 21st century, more than three million visitors a year. The most important attraction, according to surveys by the Geographical Institute of the University of Heidelberg, is the castle with its observation terraces.... view details

4.Albrechtsburg

The Albrechtsburg is a Late Gothic castle that dominates the town centre of Meissen in the German state of Saxony. It stands on a hill above the river Elbe, adjacent to the Meissen Cathedral.
In 1710 King Augustus II the Strong established the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Porcelain Manufactory at the castle, which was the first European hard-paste porcelain manufacture. Meissen porcelain was produced at the Albrechtsburg until manufacturing moved to its present location in 1863.... view details

3.Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. The "fairy-tale" palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, whom the king has greatly admired.
The castle was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king Ludwig, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886.
Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.
The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner; it embodies both the contemporaneous architectural fashion known as castle romanticism, and Ludwig II's immoderate enthusiasm for the operas of ...... view details

2.Lichtenstein Castle

Often hailed as the "fairy-tale castle of Württemberg," Lichtenstein Castle is a romantic castle built by Count Wilhelm of Württemberg to pay homage to medieval times.

The structure we see today was largely inspired by Wilhelm Hauff's novel Lichtenstein. The castle has an impressive location: perched on an 800-meter-high cliff just on the edge of the Swabian Alps, it offers magnificent views of the surrounding landscape and the valley of the Echaz River, a small tributary of the Neckar River.

The name Lichtenstein translates as "shining stone".

History

At the beginning of the 12th century, the Lords of Lichtenstein - a respectable and noble family - owned much of the ...... view details

1.Altena Castle

Altena Castle was erected by the early Counts of Berg in the early 12th century. Eventually, the House of Berg abandoned Altena and moved their residence to Hamm.
In 1912, Richard Schirrmann established the world's first youth hostel within the castle, which is still in use today.... view details