Schloss Münichau

Schloss Münichau stands four kilometres from Kitzbühel in the village of Reith. The present building replaced an earlier medieval stronghold built by the Münichau family in the 15th century. Their private chapel was consecrated in 1469 and still serves the estate. The family served first the Bishop of Bamberg and later the Dukes of Bavaria before moving south when Kitzbühel passed to Austria in the 16th century. In 1523 the Freyberg family took possession and turned the castle into a centre of Anabaptist activity under Helene von Freyberg. After political reverses she fled, returned to Catholicism, and regained the property for her sons. From 1538 the estate belonged to Mattheus Lang von Wellenburg, a leading counsellor at Innsbruck and relative of the Salzburg cardinal. The Lamberg family held it from 1580 until 1921, when a fire damaged the five-storey house. Restoration lowered the building by one storey and finished in 1921. A major renovation in 1957 converted the ruin into a hotel, which remains in operation today. The chapel, outer walls and surrounding park still reflect the estate’s long history. Views stretch across the valley towards Kitzbühel’s peaks.