Neuhaus Castle on the Eger

Burg Neuhaus an der Eger stands as a ruined hilltop fortress on a wooded basalt summit above the Eger valley in northern Bavaria. Built around 1380 by Erhard Forster of Selb to block Hohenzollern expansion, it was destroyed in 1412 after a feud with the town of Eger. The attackers took the golden sun crest from its tower, now displayed in Cheb’s museum. The site shows the remains of a main castle divided by a dry moat into two parts. The northern wing was quarried away for stone, but the southern foundations and a round tower base survive. A later 18th-century manor house at the foot of the hill, built by Friedrich Ernst von Schirnding, adds a modest contrast to the medieval ruins. Visitors walk among scattered masonry and the outlines of former walls cut into the rock. The basalt quarry below holds fallen fragments of the old bergfried. From the hilltop there are wide views over the Eger valley and the Fichtelgebirge ridges beyond.