About eight hundred years ago the distant Imperial Abbey of Kornelimünster near Aachen received as a gift the fruitful vineyards around Heimbah on the Rhine.
Romantic Reichenstein
The owners of the adjacent land ( Rheistein ) were getting rich due to new tolls ( called ‘Rhine Gold’ ) and so the Abbey wanted to get some profits as well. They built Reichenstein Castle ( probably on the oldest foundations ) ‘solely for the protection of its property’.
They delegated stewards to collect the tolls nad the castle became the residence of knight Rheinbodo and his descendants. The stewards became more cruel even than today tax collectors and soon they started to take hostages for ransom and murder. This was not approved by the nieighbours and as a punishment Staedtebund League of Rhine Cities set fire on the castle in 1253. It was besieged again in 1282 by King Rudolf of Habsburg and the robber knights were finally replenished. The land became the property of Mainz Arcbishopric but the new castle fell into decay 200 years later.
In the 19th century following the fashion of romantic castle nests the ruins were renowated in 1834 and 1899 as castle ‘Falkenburg’. In the 20th century it was the family residence of Kirsch-Puricelli, who arranged a small museum is some castle chambers. In 1983 it was sold to gourmets Egon Schmitz, who opened the hotel with 50 rooms, three restaurants and enlarged the museum with representative rooms and the chapel suitable for small conferences and casual meetings, especially weddings.
[photo courtesy of Bill Barber ]
