We picked up our rental car on Tuesday morning and headed north to see Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle, a medieval castle built starting 1147. The castle has a really interesting history - it was built originally as a fortress high up on a rock overlooking the Alsace plains. In 1633, siege, pillage and fire destroyed the castle during the Thirty Years War. The ruins were abandoned for two hundred years and then classified as a historical monument in 1862. In 1900, Kaiser Wilheim II hired a crew to undertake the complete restoration of the castle - many of the items now in the castle were found in the ruins as the restoration began.
The structure of the castle gives an accurate idea of how a mountain fortress looked in the Middle Ages. It contained a series of apartments, a kitchen, a chapel, a dining hall, and a garden in addition to all the defensive areas like a moat, towers for canons, etc. Its interior walls are decorated in a rich medieval style, and it houses an extensive collection of weapons and furniture, mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries. While it wasn't as excessive as Versailles, I was still surprised by the amount of art, stained glass, and fine furniture in the interior.
We all really enjoyed the castle and learned a lot!
No comments:
Post a Comment