The remains of the Castle can be visited
CastleNeidenfels
Lichtenstein Castle
Lichtenstein Castle is the ruin of a rock castle on the "Lichtensteiner Berg", an offshoot of the Hohe Loog at an altitude of around 270 meters in the Palatinate Forest west of the municipality of Neidenfels in the district of Bad Dürkheim in Rhineland-Palatinate.
The castle was built around 1200 and belonged to the Staufer defensive system, intended to protect the road connection from Speyer to Kaiserslautern. The Lichtenstein family had their ancestral seat here. The castle is first mentioned in connection with Cuonradus de Lichtenstein.
In 1281, the castle was destroyed by civilian and episcopal troops from Speyer under the leadership of Johann von Lichtenstein, a cousin of the castle lords, after the castle lords Albrecht and Konrad von Lichtenstein were accused of being robber barons. They had also plundered possessions of the bishop's city of Speyer. The castle was not rebuilt; instead, Neidenfels Castle was built opposite it.
Between 1838 and 1849, the ruin served as a quarry for railway construction.
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Due to the early destruction of the castle and its later use as a quarry, today only a now flattened neck ditch and the remains of a curtain wall made of bossed ashlar, which once enclosed the castle courtyard, can be seen. In the former courtyard there is a seven-meter-high rock block that once supported the keep.
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Location: 49.3931, 8.0426