Schloss Sayn

Schloss Sayn stands at the foot of the Burgberg, where the medieval Burg Sayn overlooks the town of Sayn, a district of Bendorf in the Mayen-Koblenz district. The castle began as a 14th-century Burgmannshof built for the Lords of Reiffenberg, ministerials of the Counts of Sayn. Above it, on a rocky spur, the older Burg Sayn was the ancestral seat of the Counts of Sayn, whose line divided in 1361 into Sayn-Sayn and Sayn-Wittgenstein.

The present building was commissioned in 1848 by Prince Ludwig Adolph Friedrich and his Russian wife Leonilla, who hired the French architect François Joseph Girard to transform the former manor into a neo-Gothic schloss. Between 1860 and 1862 Hermann Nebel added a double chapel modelled on the Sainte-Chapelle to house the precious arm reliquary of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia. The schloss was heavily damaged late in the Second World War, leaving only the outer walls and the chapel intact, but it was rebuilt in the 1990s and reopened in 2000.

Visitors now find the restored schloss with its neogothic interiors and the adjoining double chapel. The former museum rooms now display an exhibition on the family’s history, featuring portraits, 19th-century court gowns and photographs of Marianne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn’s motor-sport interests. Beyond the schloss lies an English landscape garden from the 19th century, which contains the Schmetterlingsgarten, a butterfly house open to the public.