The gate tower that once chimed the hours

The gate tower of Altweilnau once served as a timekeeper, ringing for day, night, and midday. Today, the sound is gone, but the architecture remains - a square tower with a hipped roof that still serves a purpose, sheltering a pair of tower falcons who keep watch over the valley.

Rising 360 metres above the Weiltal, the castle sits on a triangular outcropping of rock. The Counts of Diez built this fortress around 1200, and by 1208, it appeared in records as Wilnawe. Dendrochronological studies of wood inside the keep confirm the castle existed by 1208. It was a place of sudden importance in 1336 when the town received city rights for just nine days. During that period, walls and a gate tower were built as fortifications.

By 1352, a chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine was mentioned here, with a new castle chapel built in 1486. The castle was inhabited until 1563, but it was abandoned starting in 1608 and fell into decay during the Thirty Years' War. Stones from the castle complex were later used to build houses in Altweilnau. Today, a round keep, parts of the curtain wall, and a gate tower with a hipped roof are preserved.

The keep is a study in geometry. It stands 17.6 metres tall with an outer diameter of 8.7 metres. To enter, you must ascend 7.2 metres above the ground, moving up a metal spiral staircase fixed to the exterior. Inside, the floor holds an Angstloch - a fear hole - which likely sat above a former dungeon. Further up, a narrow stone staircase leads to the next higher level, from which an iron spiral staircase climbs to an observation platform 16.6 metres high.

The fortress was once more sprawling, with old records indicating the complex once had seven towers. In the northeast, a moat approximately 14 metres wide was blasted out of the rock. While the keep stands free, a palas likely once stood in the southeast, nestled against the curtain wall. During restoration from 1980 to 1986, the original wall thickness of 2.65 metres was restored, with the masonry anchored to the rock with steel rods.

Visitors today can still climb to that high platform. From there, the view opens across the Weiltal to the town of Altweilnau and the nearby Nassau Castle. It is a place where the medieval pulse has slowed to a silence, but the heavy stones and the sharp lines of the towers remain.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons