Hohenzollern castle - perfectly designed fortress

The Hohenzollern castle is beautifully placed on a peak of the Hohenzollern mountain (called also Zollerberg or shorter Zollern) between two towns: Bisingen and Hechingen. It can be seen even from tens of kilometers, as it rises above a vast plain. 

A brief story:

Such located hill was in the past really good lookout place. So it was chosen for perfect place to built a castle very early: the first castle was built there somewhere in XI century. From very beginning it was a headquarters of Hohenzollern family. The first castle survived till 1423, when after year-long battle it was completely destroyed. It didn't take long to built the second castle, which raised in next 30 years. Due to many wars and changes of occupiers, castle felt into ruin (beginning of XIX century). As previously, the castle was built again:) This time, then thanks to the Fiedrich Wilhelm IV king of Prussia, who wanted to to see the castle of his predecessors in stately way. And it's how it looks today (we just hope that nobody will destroy it again):

Entering the castle.

After we climbed through the last 1/3 of the hill, we saw the beautiful gate... Unfortunately, the are no good views on the castle from it's surroundings:(  ...as it turned out it was not a single gate...

The entrance to the castle for us was similar to multi-level city or gallery parkings where you have to drive in spiral to reach the next levels. We passed two tunnels and three gates also including bascule bridge. Inside the way for 'cars', horses, groups of people etc. was smaller, also round, staircase.

Finally the last gate (above on the left)... and here we are! Lets enter the courtyard.

Castles inner courtyard is rather small surrounded by buildings, there is also outer courtyard with gardens around the castle, from which you can enjoy really nice views. 

View on the courtyard from castle's rooms

Sightseeing.

The castle can be easily accessed by cars. In a two thirds of a mountain there are located car parks (2 euro for entrance) which are located behind the watchtower and just next to the castle's office. As in Neuschwanstein to access the castle you have to buy tickets there. The tours are available in German and sometimes in English, so if you want to participate in an English tour you should book it before. As we didn't know it before and there were participated in German language tour:) The tour costs 10 euro per students and 1 or 2 euro more per an adult. All important information you will find on the official website of the castle. 

Unfortunately, as always in such monuments we could not take any pictures inside:(

Tip: if you just want to walk around the castle and see the courtyard, come after opening hours. Then, maybe you have no chance to use of the restaurant or to have a guided tour through the castle's rooms but you can access courtyard for free, which normally costs 7 euro per an adult. Which is a great benefit:)

The entrance to the castles rooms leads through the room, which painted walls shows the Hohenzollern family tree. During sightseeing of this hall (below on the right), the guide told us about medieval notation of "4", which we already shared with you in our previous post about Fussen.

In the castle there is secret path under the buildings connecting two: outer and inner courtyards (above on the left). In the castle's mountain there are many, many more tunnels and still some of them haven't been explored, so nobody know where they lead. They are also associated with a legend about White Lady, who was predicting the death of members of the Hohenzollern family. The legend is available here.

Pictures are allowed to be taken in two churches: evangelic (above on the right) and catholic (above on the left). Two churches are present because of the reformation and some members of the family represents one part of the religion and some others. Above there are photos from the catholic chapel. 

That's all for today. See you next time:)