Tosters Ruin

The Ruine Tosters is the remains of a hilltop castle perched on a rocky ridge of the Schellenberg, above the village of Tosters near Feldkirch in Vorarlberg. Steep cliffs guard its northern approaches while the southern side once dropped to a wide ditch crossed by a wooden bridge. The builders were the Montfort counts, who raised the fortress around 1260 and installed a branch of their family there. The castle’s most dramatic moment came on 25 November 1405 during the Appenzell wars. Allied Feldkirch townsmen stormed the walls, leaving only the great tower standing after a fierce blaze. Reconstruction began soon after, but by 1616 neglect set in and the buildings crumbled. The tower was repaired in 1838–39, and between 1974 and 1980 the entire ruin was stabilised so visitors can walk safely among the surviving masonry. Today the square bergfried and fragments of the great hall and curtain wall form an open-air museum of medieval fortification. The high stone core offers sweeping views across the Rhine valley and the Vorarlberg Alps. Visitors follow gravel paths that wind past the restored tower and along the old ditch line, tracing the outline of the vanished courtyard and gatehouse.