From the Prussian palaces of Potsdam to plentiful noble homes scattered all around the state, we have probably covered dozens and a dozen more of castles located in Brandenburg, the German state surrounding Berlin. (Find all of them here.) But still, there are a gazillion more to discover, so here are ten castles you have probably never heard of. Most of them actually aren't open to the public yet many of them have surrounding parks you can stroll through. How I visit them? These sorts of castles usually aren't the main destination of my days out castle hunting. I either see them on the way to ..read more

When you think of the Louvre, you probably think of paintings and art - but it is also home to another kind of incredible craftsmanship: The French Crown Jewels. The Palais du Louvre, of course, served as a royal residence between the 14th and 18th centuries. And it is here in the Galerie d’Apollon, a work of art in itself, where you can find a variety of tiaras and other bejeweled objects. The room owes its existence to King Louis XIV, who famously identified himself with the sun god Apollo. This gallery was one of his first building projects to represent that image. To create this mas ..read more

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 influe ..read more

* This post is part of a paid partnership with the cities of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz. * Weissenfels, deep in the heart of Saxony-Anhalt, is a city full of contradictions. Old vs. new, fallen into ruins vs. beautifully restored. All of this is represented most in the castle towering high above in the town south-west of Leipzig: Schloss Neu-Augustusburg. While half of it, at least from the exterior, shines in new splendour, the other half is falling into ruins. It is a fascinating contrast you will find all over this historically rich little town. Once the residence of the Duchy of Sa ..read more

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 t ..read more

* This post is part of a paid partnership with the cities of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz. * Do you know those "It's on my list"-places? Towns or places where you have been wanting to visit for a while but haven’t gotten around to?! Recently I scratched one of those places off my imaginary list: Zeitz. Once upon a couple of centuries ago - between 1656 and 1718 to be precise - this little town was the capital of a small German state and secundogeniture of the Albertine line of the House of Wettin, the Duchy of Saxe-Zeitz. As any self-respecting residential town Zeitz, of course ..read more

We have covered plenty of Prussian palaces here on Confessions of a Castleholic, we even have a post on how many Prussian palaces you can see in a day. (It's five, in case you wondered.) But today, we are going to have a look at two pretty unknown palaces of the Hohenzollern family that once ruled as German Emperors: Schloss Paretz and Schloss Caputh. Never heard of them? Don't worry, neither had I before I moved to Berlin and got myself an annual ticket to the Prussian palaces surrounding the German capital. The fact that we know fairly little about them probably has as much to do with their ..read more

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 1 ..read more

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 m ..read more

Historically speaking, Berlin wasn't your prime European metropolis along the lines of Paris or London for many centuries. A frugal backwater somewhere in the north of the German-speaking nations, it only gained prominence during the mid-18th and 19th century. After the unification of Germany in 1871, Berlin became the new capital of the Prussian dominated German Empire. It was also the time of the industrialisation of Germany and so around the same time, a lot of noble homes started to spring up all around Berlin. Today, I'm taking you to six of those in the Oder-Spree administrative district ..read more