Burg Ramsberg

The Burg Ramsberg stands on a steep hill rising 657 metres above sea level, 750 metres east of Großschönach. The wooded summit is part of an end moraine from the last ice age, lying between Pfullendorf and Überlingen. The remains of the high-medieval fortress sit on a narrow plateau that drops away on all sides. The site is worth the journey for its thousand-year layers of history. The counts of Ramsberg built the first stone castle here in the 11th century as their family seat. Their last male heir married into the Habsburg line, and the Habsburgs later used the same crest. After the counts left, the tower was lowered and roofed in 1432, and the adjoining chapel was painted with late-Gothic frescoes in 1467. Visitors follow a fifteen-minute woodland path from Großschönach cemetery up to the ruin. On the plateau stands the Wallfahrtskapelle St. Wendelin, mixing Romanesque and Gothic styles with colourful 15th-century frescoes. Beside it, the inhabited Klausur St. Benedikt occupies the last remnants of the original keep. Below, a 1908 Lourdes grotto draws pilgrims every May.