Ben­theim Castle

Ben­theim Castle is widely con­sidered one of the old­est and most im­press­ive castles in north-west­ern Ger­many. Stand­ing high over the val­ley on top of the mighty sand­stone cliffs of the Ben­theim Ridge, the castle towers over the small spa town. Ben­theim is first men­tioned in his­tor­ic­al re­cords in 1020. Walls that are five-and-a-half-metres thick and made of sol­id Ben­theim sand­stone pro­tect the in­hab­it­ants against in­truders. A branch of the noble fam­ily still lives in the castle, a large part of which is open to the gen­er­al pub­lic all year.

His­tory is still very much alive be­hind these walls in the knights’ hall, the powder tower and the tor­ture cham­ber. Sand­stone is the ma­ter­i­al that defines Ben­theim, and nowhere is this more mas­ter­fully in evid­ence than in the Kron­en­burg wing, which was built in the Goth­ic style and fea­tures spa­cious cham­bers with his­tor­ic fur­nish­ings, such as in the Ernst-Au­gust-Salon.

Ex­plore the castle in day­light or after dark in a guided torch­light tour. In May, knights, knaves, mar­ket wo­men and jesters set up camp at the foot of the castle and sound the trum­pets for the start of the Bad Ben­theim Knights’ Tour­na­ment.