Landsee castle ruins

Burgruine Landsee stands on a wooded hill 537 metres above sea level, a few hundred metres east of the village of Landsee in northern Burgenland. The ruin covers about 300 by 200 metres and is one of the largest castle ruins in Central Europe. Four rings of walls once enclosed the site, with the oldest ditches and gates still partly visible. The outermost ring is the youngest, while the first gate bears the date 1668. A wooden bridge crosses the first ditch to a second, stronger gate, then another bridge leads over the second ditch to the main outer courtyard.

The castle’s history reaches back to at least the 12th century, when ministerials of the Counts of Pitten held the land. By the 13th century it belonged to Lorenz Athinai, comes of Ödenburg, and in 1289 Duke Albert of Austria captured it during the Güssing Feud. In the 16th century the Teufel family owned the castle; Erasmus von Teufel, an imperial councillor, was taken prisoner by the Turks and executed in 1552. After several changes of ownership the Esterházy family acquired it in 1612. Two great fires in 1707 and 1790 left the structure beyond repair, and by 1802 it was described as ruinous.

Visitors walk through the surviving gates and ditches into the outer courtyard, where summer concerts and theatre evenings are held. A staircase leads through further collapsed gates to the central keep, whose walls are up to ten metres thick. From the top of the keep a wide view stretches to Sopron, the southern part of Lake Neusiedl, and the Bucklige Welt. The chapel tower, built between 1460 and 1485, once housed a chapel dedicated to St Ursula, while a later Baroque chapel honours St Nicholas. The site also contains the remains of living quarters, a kitchen, and a castle cemetery beside the access road.