Cross at the Eltz Castle Viewpoint, Rhine Province, Germany

"Eltz Castle (German: Burg Eltz) is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of House of Eltz who have lived there since the 12th century. Eltz Castle along with Bürresheim Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles in the Eifel region which have never been destroyed.

The castle stands on a 70-metre-high (230 ft) rock spur that is bounded on three sides by the river Elzbach, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. The surrounding Eltz Forest has been declared a nature reserve by Flora-Fauna-Habitat and Natura 2000.

The castle is a so-called Ganerbenburg, or castle belonging to a community of joint heirs. This is a castle divided into several parts, which belong to different families or different branches of a family; this usually occurs when multiple owners of one or more territories jointly build a castle to house themselves. Only wealthy medieval European lords could afford to build castles or equivalent structures on their lands; many of them only owned one village or even only part of a village. This was an insufficient base to afford castles. Such lords usually lived in "knight's houses", which were fairly simple houses, scarcely bigger than those of their tenants. In some parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, inheritance law required that the estate be divided among all successors. These successors, each of whose individual inheritance was too small to build a castle of his own, could build a castle together, where each owned one separate part for housing, and all of them together shared the defensive fortification. In the case of Eltz, the family comprised three branches and the existing castle was enhanced with three separate complexes of buildings.

The main part of the castle consists of the family portions. At up to eight stories, these eight towers reach heights of between 30 and 40 metres (98 and 131 ft). They are fortified with strong exterior walls; to the yard, they present a partial framework. About 100 members of the owners' families lived in the over 100 rooms of the castle. A village once existed below the castle, on its south side, which housed servants, craftsmen, and their families supporting the castle.

From 1965 to 1992, an engraving of Eltz Castle was used on the German 500 Deutsche Mark note.

Wierschem is a municipality in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany.

The Rhine Province (German: Rheinprovinz), also known as Rhenish Prussia (Rheinpreußen) or synonymous with the Rhineland (Rheinland), was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822 to 1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Its capital was Koblenz and in 1939 it had 8 million inhabitants. The Province of Hohenzollern was militarily associated with the Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province. Also, for a short period of time, the Province of Hohenzollern was indirectly and de-facto controlled by the Rhine Province." - info from Wikipedia.

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

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Taken in: Germany / Rheinland-Pfalz / Landkreis Cochem-Zell / Österhof (show map)

Taken on: July 2, 2019

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Europe

Rhine Province

Germany

Deutschland

Allemagne

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Sets appears in: • Europe Cycling Tour 2019 • Germany more » • Rhine Province, Germany « less

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