Burg Altenwied

Burg Altenwied stands on a rocky spur high above the Wied valley in the northern Westerwald. The small spur castle sits about fifty metres above the river on a narrow ridge west of Neustadt, reached by the local road to Linz am Rhein. From its elevation of 204 metres it overlooks the winding Wied and the surrounding wooded hills. Built in the early 12th century, the castle once belonged to the Counts of Bilstein before passing through Kunigunde and Mechthild of Sayn to the Archbishopric of Cologne. It served as the centre of an administrative district for centuries, surviving the Thirty Years War when Spanish troops destroyed parts of it in 1633. In 1830 the estate passed to the Princes of Wied, who later sold it to a local entrepreneur in 2003. Today the castle complex measures roughly sixty metres by twenty-six metres and is dominated by a fifteen-by-nine-metre pentagonal keep rising seventeen metres above the ground. The northern shield wall has been partly rebuilt, while other medieval structures remain in ruins. Visitors can walk the outer walls and view the restored villa that now occupies the former living quarters, though the interior is private.