Gamburg Castle

The castle complex with an almost oval floor plan consists of a Staufer keep with a base area of approx. 10 × 10 meters and a wall thickness of approx. 3 meters, adjoining the former stables and the so-called Forester's House, the opposite so-called "Schloss" consisting of the Chapel Tower, the Palas, the Middle Building and the Rear Building, in which a chapel has been located since 1921, a Zwinger (outer bailey) with six semicircular bastions, a round corner tower, an outer gate with two round towers, as well as the neck ditch and the baroque castle park.

In contrast to many other castles, Gamburg was rebuilt several times, for example during the Renaissance, but it was never destroyed and was always inhabited. Even during the German Peasants' War, it remained undamaged as one of the few castles thanks to the personal intervention of Götz von Berlichingen.

The hall of the originally Romanesque Palas building, which was built by Beringer the Younger von Gamburg in the 1180s, has a floor area of 126 m². It originally had underfloor heating and is the only one whose original painting is still preserved. Its late Romanesque painting findings, discovered in 1986, are the oldest profane wall paintings north of the Alps (before 1219). They are provided with Latin and German inscriptions and tell, in the form of a continuous picture story, scenes from the 3rd Crusade under Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. Beringer d. J. von Gamburg participated in the Third Crusade. He had joined the troops of the Bishop of Würzburg Gottfried von Spitzenberg Helfenstein, who had previously been Imperial Chancellor. For its time, this room with its unusually wide, Romanesque double arcades was a marvel of architecture.