Visit the Château du Hohlandsbourg in Wintzenheim

The Hohlandsbourg castle overlooks the village of Wintzenheim, next to Colmar, on the Route des Vins. It is one of the many castles that can be found on this beautiful road on the side of the Vosges and is an ideal place to visit with children in Alsace !

To get there, you have to earn it! The road goes up from Husseren-Les-Châteaux coming from the south and from Wintzenheim coming from the north and crosses the Vosges forest. There are several parking lots where you can park and reach the castle in about ten minutes. It climbs! But generally, when you visit a castle, you need good shoes, right?

History of the Hohlandsbourg Castle

Built in 1279 by Siegfried de Gundolsheim, provost of Colmar under the influence of the Habsburgs, the Hohlandsbourg castle had different owners and underwent several expansions before it was dismantled at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648). And since then, the ruins of the castle had been left as they were until they were bought by the Conseil Général du Haut-Rhin in 1985. Years of work followed to reconstitute certain parts of the castle, mainly with materials found on site, with the help of historical documents. Archaeological excavations were also carried out there before it was reopened to the public in 2013.

What to visit in the Hohlandsbourg castle?

The Hohlandsbourg castle is composed of several spaces but one does not visit old living spaces as it is the case in many castles. Today, there is a stage with a large courtyard where the big summer events take place from June on.

There is a museum space in the old dwelling and kitchen, refurbished with a modern decoration that blends perfectly with the ancient stones.

There is also the large enclosure which can be walked around thanks to the covered way. There, we have a magnificent 360° view!

It takes 2 hours of visit without animations and without the meal. Note that we came across groups of children celebrating birthdays. The castle also organizes weddings and it was tasting day at the brewery. We were therefore entitled to an “exceptional” menu that day, but were not able to try the usual menu.

We tested the guided tour in family!

We did a tour on our own, there is a suggested route on the leaflet we were given at the entrance. But we had the opportunity to join a guided tour. There are about every hour and a quarter. When we arrived at the reception, the guide kindly offered to give us a tour just for us if she wasn’t busy with other visitors. And it adapts to the audience!

Of course, the children are the kings of the castle. She gives us some anecdotes and tells us stories like the traces of “flames” on a wall attributed to a dragon…

To learn more, visit theHohlandsbourg museum. Here you can find a temporary exhibition that changes every year, as well as a permanent exhibition. This last one tells mainly about the daily life in the castle: we discover the uniform of the knight and the halberdier, what we ate during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, how we heated ourselves, the weapons that were used… All this with objects found on site during the excavations. And we arrive to the restoration of the castle from 1985 to 2000 and to the archaeological excavations carried out between 2008 and 2013.

My photos from the visit of the Hohlandsbourg Castle