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HOHENZOLLERN CASTLE
Swabia Black Forest Mountaintop Palace in the Clouds

Swabia Germany is the region in southwest Germany between the Black Forest and Bavaria along the Upper Danube River which flows eastward through southern Germany toward Hungary. The Hohenzollern family is one of the grand dynasties of Europe, once ruling over portions of Swabia, Bavaria, Franconia and Prussia in Germany and connected by marriages and complicated lineages to the British and Russian Royal families with the culmination of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany’s last Emperor before the modern era since WWI tended to level monarchies into the past of history.

The ancestral castle of the Hohenzollern, sits high on a mountaintop – “the Zoller hill” - overlooking the Danube Valley at the eastern edge of the Black Forest , sometimes shrouded in clouds like a legendary mythical fairytale castle. The original fortress of the 11th Century was destroyed in the 1400’s. It was rebuilt and expanded in the 1600’s in somewhat its current footprint, but fell to disuse when the family moved to the more easily reached castle palace in nearby Sigmaringen (see Schloss Sigmaringen Castle). In the early 1800s the castle became a reconstruction project for a family history enthusiast, Crown Prince Frederick, recreated in a neo-gothic style, completed in 1867.

Aside from a majestic castle outline on its mountaintop, often appearing like an island in the sky above the clouds, one of the curious and unique features of this grand landmark is the complex royal family genealogy which Wilhelm II wallpapered onto the grand entry way “Ancestral Hall” to follow the family line. Rare among castles is the circular driveway to the Eagle Gate obviously built for carriages in the 19th Century almost rather like a modern parking structure to overcome the steep mountain approach to the castle. Grand rooms and parlors fitting a royal palace, secret medieval underground passageways only discovered in 2001, now display family china and gold dishware and two coffins which once held the remains of Frederick the Great and his son. And for more morbid curiosity, resting on a hallway table are two deathmask molds of a couple of the family. The Hohenzollern castle also holds the Royal Treasury of the Hohenzollerns. The treasure was divided in a property dispute in the 1920’s, but the magnificent Royal Prussian Crown (a replacement for an earlier original sold off piecemeal) can be seen in a safe in the former castle kitchens turned into the treasury room. There is an armor collection, but no comparison to that in the other Hohenzollern family castle at Sigmaringen.

The Burg Hohenzollern Castle at Hechingen in Baden-Wurttemburg is about an hour south of Stuttgart and an hour and a half from Munich. Guided group tours are available for about 11 Euro for adults. The grounds and secret tunnels for half that. If you park in the lower parking lot take the shuttle bus for 2.60 Euro round trip. The hiking path up the hill is quite steep and long. There is a restaurant below the castle, the “Burgschenke”. © Bargain Travel Europe

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Hohenzollern Castle

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