Marksburg Castle is a castle near Braubach, Germany, dating back to 1117. Marksburg Castle History. Originally named Burg Braubach, The Marksburg rises high above the right bank of the Rhine River, crowning a cone-shaped hill overlooking the town of Braubach. Marksburg Castle is the last original castle on the Rhineland and the interiors are viewable via guided German tour. For an English tour, Viking hooked us up! More details and photos on our visit below. Burg Rheinfels Castle is an expansive, gutted shell. Burg Eltz Castle is located on the Mosel River and quite popular. Many people love this.
The castle opens at 10.00 but is a private residence so visiting is only by guided tours. The first English speaking tour is at 12 midday - so we had a 90 minute wait after getting there before or tour was due to start. It can get really busy depending on how many tour boats are also visiting as these tours seem to get priority treatment over normal customers, so our tour started almost a half-hour late. The hour long tour felt rushed as there was so much information given to you, but the building is majestic and unique in that it has never been attacked and rebuilt.
It does give one a good view of what was decreed to be luxury in Medieval times! Yes, this castle was never attacked and so it is very much as it was in medieval times. What struck me most about this, however was the difference between a castle and a palace.
This place is not a palace, and the living conditions, even including the apparently common luxury of an 'in-house outhouse' would be considered barely livable today. Yes, there were a lot of rooms and it appeared that they ate and drank well, but the multiple gates, fortifications, cannonades and the torture chamber should tell you this place wasn't about comfort and an extravagant lifestyle.
Lots of rough stairs up and down, not counting the long uphill walk just to get to the souvenir shop/snack bar/waiting area. Make sure you look out over the Valley every chance you get, and try to get to the little park in Braubach where you can look back and appreciate the lofty perch where the castle sits. You can also take some time to smell the roses there.:-). We visited the Marksburg with our 3 young children in tow.
Luck would have it that we arrived at 12p, exactly when the English tour started. I felt it added so much more to the experience to go on the English tour. I know others have done the German tour and read their guidebooks but this would have been difficult for us given our young children. It also added so much more to their experience and the guide was great with them and made it very 'child friendly'. It's amazing to be in a 700 year old castle, and even though the things inside are props, it still gives a great idea as to how the castle might have looked in it's heyday.
The furniture allowed you to learn a bit about how they lived, like how they cooked and how small people were then (given the small size of the 'adult' sized bed). We thoroughly enjoyed it and the children stayed interested for the whole hour (no small feat for a 7,5 and 3 year old). Would def recommend. My visit to Marksburg Castle was an optional tour offered by the tour group I was traveling with. I'm glad I signed up.The two hooks that lured me in were!
The authenticity of a very old structure that has never been destroyed and 2, The promise of a glimpse into the daily life within the castle. I was not disappointed. So many buildings in Germany have been rebuilt due to the ravages of time and wars.
Some of those reconstructions, unfortunately, have a Disney World feel to them This was not the case with Marksburg. This castle is the real deal. The bed chamber, the linen room, the banquet room, the open door bathroom immediately (and somewhat comically) outside of the banquet room brought the past into the present for me.
I really left with a sense of how life may have been for the people who slept, ate and worked in the castle. Our English speaking guide was matter of fact and informative. The small gift shop offered a number of reasonably priced items that were not cookie cutter.I was thrilled with the lovely metal wall bell I purchased.
Make sure to wear good walking shoes. It is a bit of a hike to get to.