Neckarburg

The Neckarburg is the ruined remains of an early medieval hilltop castle on a long ridge above the Neckar near Villingendorf, just outside Rottweil. It sits on a 550-metre Umlaufhügel that juts into a great loop of the river, within a nature reserve where juniper still covers the slopes. The site belongs to the Counts of Bissingen-Nippenburg and is the oldest castle complex in the district. The earliest written record dates from 793, when an Alamannic nobleman named Berthold gave the place to St Gall’s monastery and took it back as a fief. No stone buildings survive from that period, but the surrounding ditch and curtain wall can still be traced.

The castle passed through several noble families in the 11th to 14th centuries, first the Sulz counts, then the Neuneck and Reute lines who divided the site into a front and rear ward. A feud in 1379 left the rear tower ruinous, and by 1387 it was called a Burgstall—an uninhabitable shell. In 1580 the Spreter von Kreudenstein family bought the site, demolished both wards, and built a new three-towered palace 50 metres away. A contemporary painting by Johann Georg Glückher in the Michaelskapelle shows how grand it once looked. The chapel itself, first recorded in 1275, was rebuilt in the 15th century and enlarged around 1500 with a new choir.

Today the ruins stand among juniper-clad slopes within the nature reserve. The Michaelskapelle still holds its baroque pew ends carved with craftsmen’s marks, a late-Gothic Madonna and an 18th-century gallery. Recent restorations have stabilised the walls and moved 13th-century grave slabs from the old walled cemetery inside the chapel. The Neckartal-Radweg passes close by, and a farmyard at the foot of the hill offers food and parking. From the ridge there are wide views along the Neckar valley and across to the motorway bridge that carries the A81 high above.