A visit to the Hohenbaden castle ruins

On our trip to the south of France, we made a stopover in my Baden homeland for the first leg. After many years, we wanted to experience the sunset from the Hohenbaden castle ruins again. That’s why we stayed directly in Baden-Baden at the castle. The medieval Hohenbaden Castle (“Old Castle”) perches high above the town on the slopes of the Battert and offers a wide panoramic view over the Northern Black Forest, the Rhine Valley, Alsace with the Vosges, and the Southern Palatinate.

The oldest parts of the complex, the upper castle around the keep, date back to around the year 1100. In the following centuries, the fortress walls were reinforced. Once the focus shifted from defensibility to prestige, the complex was expanded with massive residential buildings in the Baroque style. The so-called Bernhardsbau, of which the multi-storey outer walls still stand today, housed a large, heated knights’ hall, among other things. After a fire at the end of the 16th century, the castle ruins fell into disrepair and were structurally secured and made accessible to visitors in the 18th/19th century, possibly inspired by the burgeoning Romantic movement.

After the castle restaurant reopened in May 2024, the castle ruins were fortunately open all day again. You can reach numerous levels via many stairs, from which wide views open up time and again. My favourite spot is on the palas of the upper castle, which offers one of the best views over the castle complex and a wide landscape panorama. When we still lived in Baden-Baden, we often came by on summer evenings like this, often with a bottle of wine. We had already had our sundowner today at the Waldschänke above the New Castle. Now we revelled in the glowing colours of the sunset.

A lovely spot is also slightly above the castle at the first of the Battert rocks, where you can look over the castle complex from the Ritterplatte. The “Upper Rock Path” soon leads to further rock towers and can be combined with the “Lower Rock Path” into a scenic circular tour. Unfortunately, the rock bridge on the Badener Wand is no longer there; it was dismantled to protect the peregrine falcons.

The following morning, I enjoyed the quiet morning atmosphere once more before we started the drive to France.