Marksburg Castle

Marksburg Castle

The unbroken castle of the Rhine

The river Rhine in Germany winds through a steep, romantic valley lined with dozens of medieval castles, perched one after another on the heights above the water. Most of them are ruins, blown up or battered in centuries of war. But one castle stands apart: Marksburg, rising in stacked stone terraces above the little town of Braubach. It is the only one of the Rhine's many hilltop castles that was never destroyed, and so it survives almost complete — a perfect window into the Middle Ages.

Climbing the hill in steps

Marksburg began as a hilltop castle in the early 1100s and kept growing over the centuries. Because it clings to a steep cone-shaped hill, the castle is built in rising levels, with walls, gates and buildings stacked up the slope toward the keep at the very top. To reach the heart of the castle, an attacker would have had to fight up through gateway after gateway and along a steep passage cut into the rock — a nightmare for any enemy.

This clever design, together with the castle's strong position, is one reason Marksburg was never taken and never destroyed.

Life in a real medieval castle

Because it survived intact, Marksburg lets us see exactly how people lived in a medieval castle. Visitors can walk through the great hall, the bedchamber with its box-like bed, the chapel, and the smoky kitchen with its huge fireplace. There is a herb garden growing the plants people used for food and medicine, a collection of armour showing how knights' equipment changed over the centuries, and — less pleasantly — a dim dungeon and a chamber of grim instruments of justice.

These rooms make Marksburg feel less like a ruin and more like a home whose people have only just stepped out, giving a vivid sense of everyday medieval life.

A castle for cannon

As gunpowder weapons grew more powerful, Marksburg was not left behind. Gun batteries and stout walls were added to mount cannon, so that the old medieval castle could defend itself in the new age of artillery. Old cannon still stand on its terraces today, pointing out over the river.

Guardian of Germany's castles

In modern times Marksburg gained an extra honour: it became the headquarters of the German Castles Association, a group dedicated to protecting and studying castles all over the country. So the one Rhine castle that was never destroyed now helps look after all the others — a fitting role for such a survivor.

Visiting today

Visitors climb the steep path and pass through the castle's gateways into a world of medieval halls, kitchens and battlements. From the walls there are glorious views over the Rhine, with its barges, vineyards and other castles dotting the heights. Complete, authentic and proudly unconquered, Marksburg is one of the finest places in all of Europe to discover what a medieval castle was truly like.