Burg Nesselwangen

Burg Nesselwangen stands on the Schlossberg, a steep 630-metre hill spur 500 metres north of Nesselwangen church in Überlingen. The site once held a small spur castle with a circular plateau seventeen metres wide. Only grass-covered banks and dry ditches now mark where walls once rose. The plateau’s flat top still shows the original shape of the inner ward. A single path winds up the slope to the summit from the north-east. Visitors reach the hilltop after a short climb through beech and oak woodland. The remains belong to a medieval fortress built to guard the Überlingen region. Alois Schneider’s 1989 survey lists the site among the Bodenseekreis’s vanished castles. Hans-Wilhelm Heine’s 1978 study traces its defences back to the 12th or 13th century. Archaeologists recognise the circular ditch as part of the original ringwork. The plateau’s size matches other small hilltop castles of the same period. The site shows how local lords once controlled the valley below. At the top the view stretches across Überlingen to the northern shore of Lake Constance. The surrounding forest frames the hill on three sides. On clear days the Alps appear in the south-west. The path continues past the plateau’s edge before looping back down. Visitors can walk the whole circuit in under twenty minutes. The quiet hilltop offers a place to stand and look without distraction.