Schloss Oberau

Schloss Oberau is a moated castle in the village of Oberau, part of Niederau municipality near Meissen in Saxony. Built on the site of a 13th-century watchtower, it became a Renaissance residence in the 16th century under Ernst von Miltitz. The castle’s long rectangular main block still shows its original Renaissance gables and a medieval stair-tower later given a neo-Gothic cap. The castle’s history includes visits by Sweden’s King Karl XII during the Great Northern War, when his 34 000 troops camped around Niederau. Later owners enlarged the estate to 200 acres of fields, 250 acres of woodland and 400 acres of vineyard. By 1853 the complex counted eighteen rooms, a slate-roofed tower and a yellow-painted façade, while the surrounding park held sculpture and a bust of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. Today the restored castle stands beside its moat and park, its wings forming an L-shaped plan. The medieval stair-tower rises above the courtyard, and the former Renaissance gables remain visible on the main block. Visitors walk past the site of the old vegetable garden where Gellert’s bust once stood, now moved to a nearby open-air stage.