Burg Staufen (Hegau)

The Burg Staufen stands on a 594-metre hill above Hilzingen in the Hegau region of Baden-Württemberg. It was built in the 13th century as a medieval hilltop castle and passed through the hands of the Lords of Homburg and the Counts of Hohenberg. In 1499 the Swiss burned it during their war, and in 1638 Konrad Widerholt’s troops finished the job, leaving only the outer walls and a few roofless buildings.

The ruins still show stretches of the ring wall and crumbling masonry from the 16th-century keep. Local people took much of the stone for their own houses, so little remains above ground today. Yet the site keeps the outline of the old fortress clear enough to trace the gatehouse and inner courtyard.

Visitors walk among the weathered stones and look across the Hegau’s rolling farmland. The climb up the wooded slope rewards them with wide views over Lake Constance and the distant Alps. A reconstruction drawing in the nearby village shows how the castle once looked before war and time stripped it away.