A while ago me and my then girlfriend visited the vale of the Moselle and one day we took the trip tot Burg Eltz. This remains one of the most beautiful and well-preserved medieval castles I've seen to date. The castle is entered trough a high causeway and the shot from the causeway to the castle is famous. The sunrise in the puzzle looks very cool, during our visit this was not seeable (because of the clouds and beacuse we visitedthe castle in the afternoon).
About Burg Eltz (
visit link)
"Eltz Castle (German: Burg Eltz) is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of the same family (the Eltz family) that lived there in the 12th century, thirty-three generations ago. Bürresheim Castle, Eltz Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles on the left bank of the Rhine in Rhineland-Palatinate which have never been destroyed.
The castle is surrounded on three sides by the river Elzbach, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. It is on a 70-metre (230 ft) rock spur, on an important Roman trade route between rich farmlands and their markets.
Platteltz, a Romanesque keep, is the oldest part of the castle, having begun in the 9th century as a simple manor with an earthen palisade. By 1157 the fortress was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick Barbarossa, standing astride the trade route from the Moselle Valley and the Eifel region. In the years 1331–1336, there occurred the only serious military conflicts that the castle experienced. During the Eltz Feud, the lords of Eltzer, together with other free imperial knights, opposed the territorial policy of the Archbishop and Elector Balduin von Trier. The Eltz Castle was put under siege and possible capture and was bombarded with catapults by the Archbishop of the Diocese of Trier. A small siege castle, Trutzeltz Castle, was built on a rocky outcrop on the hillside above the castle, which can still be seen today as a few ruined walls outside of the northern side of the castle. The siege lasted for two years, but ended only when the free imperial knights had given up their imperial freedom. Balduin reinstated Johann again to the burgrave, but only as his subject and no longer as a free knight. In 1472 the Rübenach house, built in the Late Gothic style, was completed. Remarkable are the Rübenach Lower Hall, a living room, and the Rübenach bedchamber with its opulently decorated walls.
Started in 1470 by Philipp zu Eltz, the 10-story Greater Rodendorf House takes its name from the family's land holding in Lorraine. The oldest part is the flag hall with its late Gothic vaulted ceiling, which was probably originally a chapel. Construction was completed around 1520. The (so-called) Little Rodendorf house was finished in 1540, also in Late Gothic style. It contains the vaulted "banner-room".
The Kempenich house replaced the original hall in 1615. Every room of this part of the castle could be heated; in contrast, other castles might only have one or two heated rooms."