Hohenburg Castle Ruin

En un regard

Le château en bref

On the Schlossberg, the hill overlooking the town of Homburg in the Saarland, Hohenburg went through three successive lives. Built in the twelfth century as the seat of the counts of Homburg, whose line died out in 1449, it then passed to the counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken, who converted it into a Renaissance castle in the sixteenth century and then, from 1559, into a fortress. Taken by imperial troops in 1636 and held by Lorraine from 1641 to 1679, it was enlarged by France under Louis XIV, demolished after the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, briefly reoccupied from 1701 to 1714, and then finally destroyed. The dukes of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, who had owned it since 1755, used its stones as a quarry for Karlsberg Castle. Excavations carried out since 1981 have uncovered foundations, sections of wall and the moat. The ruin can be visited freely all year round; beneath the hill extend the sandstone caves of the Schlossberg.