Top 19 Castles around Falkenstein

Great place, in some places you can still see castle walls.

Nice place to come back

Few remains of the ruins, but very beautiful and photogenic.

Super beautiful, but also very strenuous uphill

Beautiful place with a summit cross, the climb is not entirely without danger, there is a fall protection secured with a chain. The ruins are very overgrown and can hardly be really seen anymore.

Lobenstein Castle Ruins Around 1150, Othmar and Rizman von Lobeneck appear in local documents as ministerials of the Margrave of Cham. It is uncertain whether the nobility was referring to the later Lobenstein Castle. We are on safe ground in 1340, when Eberhard von Hof buys an existing "purkstal near Zelle" from Eiban von Peilstein and receives permission from Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian to build there in return for the right to open it. From 1342, Eberhard calls himself Hofer von Lobenstein. He manages a Hofmark in Zell for Bavaria and appoints judges there. After the castle is destroyed by the Hussites at the beginning of the 15th century, the Hofers run into financial difficulties and become robber barons. In 1443, Duke Albrecht III of Bavaria occupied the castle because Degenhard Hofer had killed some of his subjects. Hans Hofer's part of the castle was taken away from him by Count Palatine Otto II in 1468 for similar crimes. From 1489, Dietrich Hofer was a member of the Löwler Knights' League, which opposed the Bavarian Duke. He conquered the castle and only returned it to Dietrich's son Wolf in 1507. In 1530, Lobenstein became part of the Palatinate, but after the damage it was probably never properly inhabited again. The Hofers remained the owners because nobody wanted to buy the ruins. The last Hofer to live in Lobenstein was Hans Georg, who had to leave his domain in 1629 because of his Protestant faith. The Bavarian-occupied Lobenstein Castle was probably finally destroyed by the Swedes in 1633. It has remained a ruin ever since. All that is left of Lobenstein Castle today is the residential tower, which seems to literally grow out of the stone of the granite rock tower. The slightly raised entrance was protected by a round wall tower on the southeast corner. Instead of simple beamed ceilings, barrel vaults were built on Lobenstein with plaster that is still clearly visible today. The residential tower has 3 floors and is 18 m high with a wall thickness of 2.5 m. The walls are built from rough rubble stone and the corners are made of ashlars. In the lower regions between these rocks, remains of walls can still be found that stand out clearly from the rest and could have come from the previous castle. In the basement there are a few narrow light slits, while the larger windows on the upper floors have comfortable seating niches. On the northwest corner of the second floor, the consoles of a toilet bay can still be seen. Source: Excerpts from www.burgenseite.de

Heilsberg Castle Ruins In the last third of the 12th century, Ulrich and Wernhardus from Heilsberg appeared in documents for the first time. Since Ulrich's successor Ekbert, they were also vassals of Eggmühl and fiefs of the Bavarian duke. They were thus in the middle of the power struggle between the Wittelsbach dukes and the Regensburg bishops. In a contract, Duke Ludwig of Kelheim had to give up a castle that was already under construction near Heilsberg, which the Heilsbergers were obviously supposed to receive as a fief. Over the course of the 13th century, Ekbert and his son Ulrich repeatedly tried to use their bailiwick rights to alienate property from the bishop. The bishop accused them of forcing their subjects to perform unjust feudal labor in order to illegally expand their castle. In addition, the Heilsbergers had bloody feuds with the Paulsdorfers and with Konrad von Hohenfels. In the first third of the 14th century, the male line of Heilsberg died out, followed by a series of owners, including the powerful Upper Palatinate knightly family of Notthafft. It was not until around 1500 that the Wittelsbachs were finally able to take over the Heilsberg domain, and in 1505 it was assigned to the Palatinate-Neuburg line. The castle was probably already abandoned in the 16th century, and on Apian's map of 1568 it is already marked as a ruin. A local support group has recently been working to save the ruins. The most striking remains of the castle are the keep, which dates from around 1200 and has a side length of 7.5 meters with 2.5 m thick walls. This is evidenced by its masonry, which consists of smooth blocks and humped blocks with 5 to 10 centimetre wide edges; the ring wall fragment with the archway is so deep in the ground that it is almost impossible to date it. Among the later extensions to the castle that are known to have been made, there is also a new gate in 1498. In 1474, a new bridge and a new gate were built. In 1498, the castle was repaired after a fire, and work on the bower, the new parlor and the stables is known to have been carried out. Recently, the keep has been secured and renovated at great expense, and the buried interior of the tower has also been uncovered. The extremely deep, almost circumferential moat separates the castle grounds from the Heilsberg plateau on two sides. Source: Extracts from www.burgenseite.de / www./burgen/detail/burgruine-heilsberg/178

Somehow a mystical-looking place