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Sandstone castles
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Thirty-five castles
on mountain tops and steep rocky slopes in Vosges du Nord,
around sixty in Pfälzerwald. They are part of some
500 castles and chateaux in Alsace and Rheinland-Pfalz
that were built between the early 12th and mid-14th Cs.
Using the characteristic rocky peaks in the area, the
builders placed their castles on escarpments, and sometimes
even including natural caves. The rock and the castle
were often one...
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Ruins of Frohenbourg
in Lembach,
© SYCOPARC
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Both residence and garrison, designed to be a place to
which one could withdraw and defend oneself, they were
the sites of numerous feudal wars and often the repair
of their robber lords.
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Trifels Castle,
© NPP
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A good water supply was essential for the inhabitants
to last out a siege. As it was virtually impossible to
draw sufficient water from a well given the nature of
the sites, ingenious systems were designed to catch rain
water, filter it through sand and store it in cisterns
in numerous castles. |
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