Schwerin Castle

Schwerin Castle rises from a small island between Lake Schwerin and the city's old town, a riot of gilded domes, turrets and towers, and it is often called the "Neuschwanstein of the North". The site has been fortified since at least 973, when the Slavic Obotrites had a stronghold here. It was the seat of the dukes, later grand dukes, of Mecklenburg for most of the next nine centuries, and Duke John Albert I turned the fortress into a Renaissance palace in the 16th century. Most of what you see, however, dates from the rebuilding ordered by Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II between 1845 and 1857. In 2024 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The rebuilding was a collaboration between several of the leading architects of the time, Georg Adolph Demmler, Gottfried Semper, Friedrich August Stüler and Ernst Friedrich Zwirner. Demmler, a pupil of Schinkel, took his inspiration from the Renaissance châteaux of the Loire, above all Chambord. Stüler added the equestrian statue of the Obotrite prince Niklot and the dome. Parts of the older palace were kept, including the 16th-century chapel, the first new Protestant church in Mecklenburg, with a Renaissance portal by the Dresden sculptor Hans Walther. The result is one of the key works of Romantic historicism in Europe.

A fire destroyed about a third of the building in December 1913, and only the exterior had been rebuilt when the Grand Duke abdicated in 1918. The palace has since been a museum, a teacher-training college in East German times, and, since 1990, the seat of the Landtag, the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while other parts house the palace museum, a restaurant and open-air theatre in the courtyard. Local legend says the castle is haunted by the Petermännchen, a small guardian ghost.

The setting is as much a part of the visit as the interiors: the palace stands next to the lake, with an extensive park beside it. Schwerin, the state capital, is a small city ringed by seven lakes, with a well-preserved old town, and is easily combined with the palace in a day.

Getting there

The palace is on its island at the south-east edge of Schwerin's old town, less than 1 km from the centre. Direct ICE trains from Hamburg take under an hour, and regional trains run hourly to Hamburg, Rostock, Wismar and Berlin. The nearest airport is Lübeck (LBC), about 50 km away; Hamburg Airport (HAM), about 95 km away, has far more flights and good rail links to Schwerin.