ruins in the siebengebirge, just outside of bonn. rich history, next to an incident that might have been the origin to the story of snowwhite, the story of siegfried the dragonslayer from the niebelungensage takes place here, in a cave at the drachenfels (dragonsrock)
the ruined castle drachenfels, it belonged to the archbishop of cologne and is on said drachenfels just over the rhine river
view from the drachenfels to the lionscastle/ löwenburg (on the steeper hill center left), which belonged to the herren von sayn, the house from which also "snowwhites" character came from.
the siebengebirge was the boarder region between the lands of colognes archbishop and the quite powerful family of sayn, which is why it has a multitude of castles/fortresses. this made it very appealing to the people in the romantic era, which is why many castles/chateaus/mantions where built there during that time:
just beneath the drachenfels, you can find schloss drachenburg
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close by, you have the hirschburg:
the ruined burg rosenau:
and then there is ofc the löwenburg itself:
and the ruined monastary heisterbach:
i wish i could show you just how close all these things are (there are even more ruins and castles but i cant be arsed to put them all together here).
in a days hike, you can practically visit a hand full of beautiful chateaus, 3 ruined castles, see two more on the other side of the river, visit the mountain on which the biggest castle used to be (which was torn down to build a nearby city and the dome of colonge), one fake ruin from the romantic era, the caves in which snowwhite was raped and murdered by the seven dwarfs, a V1 launching pad, the ruins of a weaponsfactory and of a bewildered mansion, a handful of bunkers and other weird ruins and shit you cant even tell about what it is.
