Burghausen Castle

Interesting facts

The Swedish field marshal Gustav Horn, captured in the Thirty Years' War, was held in the dungeon of the main castle from 1634 to 1641.

In 1447 Duke Louis VII of Bavaria-Ingolstadt died at the castle as a prisoner of his cousin and rival, Duke Henry XVI of Bavaria-Landshut.

Excavations beneath the Dürnitz in 2002–2004 uncovered pottery from the 16th century BC, confirming that the ridge was settled in the Bronze Age.

The inner castle chapel, built in 1255, is regarded as the oldest early Gothic church in southern Bavaria.

Apart from a few exceptions, the whole complex is built of blocks of tufa, a porous limestone quarried in the region.

At its late medieval height the castle stables held several hundred horses, and residents lived by rank, from the main castle down to the outermost courtyard.

The ducal dining hall could be heated without smoke by a stove fed from outside the room, and a source from 1509 records 38 tables standing in it.

Thanks to its long, steep-sided ridge, the castle was never taken by storm; its northern outworks were demolished by French troops under Marshal Ney in 1800–1801.

Margarete of Austria, the banished wife of Duke Henry XVI, was sent here, and the castle became the residence of duchesses and widows and the store of the ducal treasure.

From 1899 the Art Nouveau painter Maximilian Liebenwein lived in one of the castle towers, decorating its interior in his own style.

Why it is worth it

Burghausen Castle is, by a wide margin, the longest castle complex in the world: its walls, courtyards and towers run for 1,051 metres along a narrow ridge above the Salzach, a length confirmed by Guinness World Records. On one side the ridge drops to the river, which here forms the border between Bavaria and Austria; on the other lies the small lake of the Wöhrsee. Seen from the far bank, the chain of roofs and towers stretches along the crest like a fortified town in itself.

A castle stood here before 1025, and in 1168 it passed to the Wittelsbachs. After the division of Bavaria in 1255 it became the second residence of the dukes of Lower Bavaria, and its present scale is largely the work of the late Middle Ages. Duke Georg the Rich, who ruled from 1479 to 1503, turned it into one of the strongest fortresses of his duchy, and after Bavaria was reunited in 1505 the defences were modernised again in response to the Ottoman threat. Following the Treaty of Teschen in 1779, which moved the border to the Salzach, it became a frontier fortress.

The complex is Gothic in character and is laid out as a main castle with its inner courtyard, followed by five outer courtyards, defended by a succession of gates and towers, among them the Saint George's Gate of 1494 and the Powder Tower. The ducal residence in the main castle now houses the castle museum and a branch gallery of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, while the Kemenate holds the town museum. Below the ridge lies the old town of Burghausen in the Inn-Salzach style typical of the region, with its 14th–15th-century town hall and the parish church of St. Jakob. Since the founding of the Wacker chemical works in 1915 the town has grown into an industrial centre, but the historic quarter beneath the castle has kept its old form.

Getting there

The castle rises directly above the old town of Burghausen, in the Altötting district of Upper Bavaria, about 1.5 km from the modern town centre. The nearest airport is Salzburg Airport (SZG) in Austria, about 42 km away; the nearest German airport is Munich Airport (MUC), about 80 km away.

Burghausen Castle

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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