Former Windeck Castle (Neidlingen)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Allemagne entière

Perched at 722 metres on a narrow ridge of the Swabian Jura, about one kilometre east-northeast of the village of Neidlingen, the former Windeck Castle is today no more than a Burgstall, the site of a vanished castle. No masonry remains visible: two ditches cut into rock and earth still betray the presence of the medieval fortress. Windeck was in all likelihood an outwork or small secondary fortification of the neighbouring Merkenberg Castle, probably founded around 1200 by the Counts of Aichelberg and passed to Württemberg in the 1330s. Both sites shared the same fate and disappeared between the 14th and 15th centuries. For walkers, the wooded ridge overlooking the Lindach valley offers a discreet but authentic reading of the medieval defensive system along the edge of the Alb, best combined with a visit to the nearby sites of Merkenberg and the spectacular Reussenstein Castle.