Meersburg Castles

The two castles of Meersburg.

The oldest inhabited castle in Germany has great arms and armor collection—and a baroque Neue Schloss neighbor in a village on the Bodensee (Lake Constance)

Swords, medieval weapons, and armor in the armory of the Burg Meersburg castle .

Tiny lakeside Meersburg with its medieval streets and half-timbered buildings actually has two castles to visit, conveniently side-by-side.

The Meersburg Old Castle

The stony Altes Schloss, —or simply Burg Meersburg—with its corner round towers and stair-stepped gabled central tower (added in the 16th century), is considered the oldest surviving castle in Germany.

Parts of it do date back to AD 630 and its foundation by Dagobert I, last of the great Frankish Merovingian kings. Most of it, however, only dates back as far as the 12th century (still pretty old), and from the 13th century on it served as a seat for the Prince-Bishops of Konstanz.

You can visit 35 of its rooms (the rest are inhabited by the castle's current owners), many of them furnished much as they were in the late middle ages. There's everybody's favorite, the armory, filled with weapons and armor; a castle kitchen; a Knights Hall; and, of course, a dungeon and torture chamber.

The grand staircase in the Neues Schloss of Meersburg.

A few rooms have been preserved in their 19th century state to honor the residence of German poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, who lived out her final years in this, the house of her brother-in-law, in the 1840s.

The Meersburg New Castle

By the 18th century, the powerful Prince-Bishops of Konstanz wanted something a bit newer, fresher, and more baroque-y than the drafty old Burg, so they set about building themselves a Neues Schloss next to the old one in 1710–50, designed by Franz Anton Bagnato and finished off in grand style with a staircase based upon plans by German baroque architect extraordinaire, Balthasar Neumann.

The baroque Schlosskappel chapel at the Meersburg Neues Schloss.

Though the bishopric was dissolved in 1803 (after which their palace was used variously as a girls' school, prison, sailor's school, high school, institute for deaf-mutes, and barracks for French troops after World War II), the Schloss continues to reign above the town in all its white-frosted pink glory.

Restored to its baroque splendor—most evident in the Festsaal (ballroom) with its frescoed ceiling and the Schlosskappel chapel—the Neues Schloss now contains a museum dedicated to the era of the Prince-Bishops and several oddball collections of decorative arts and natural history as part of its State Gallery museum.

Tips & links