Reinhardstein Castle

Reinhardstein Castle was the first stop on our Ardennes tour and despite the rain was a fabulous visit. I knew absolutely nothing about the place and it was chosen after looking at TripAdvisor for suitable places to stop before reaching our hotel.

Visiting

My notes from my blog are:

“This was an interesting place to get to, luckily sat nav is great! The final road is very narrow and windy and eventually there are a couple of small car parks just off the road. From there you take a 5-10 minute walk down a country lane to reach the castle and we chose to do the guided tour.. As we had a bit of time we went into the cafe for some food to warm us up. The cafe was very rustic and obviously limited in what they could do but the soup and bread was lovely and while we were inside the rain stopped too.

We joined our tour with a Dutch couple and they spoke excellent English so the guide did the tour in English for us. The area is at the crossroads between German, French, Dutch and Walloon speaking areas so most people here seem to be multilingual. Unlike us Brits!

It was fascinating to learn the history of the castle and area as they changed hands between the various competing factions and families in the area. The castle was destroyed after being looted by the French in the Revolutionary Wars and then restored in the 1960’s by a Belgian professor. The interior was a mix of styles with armour and decoration from various periods.

We had a quick walk around the grounds but it was raining again by then so we didn’t get to the waterfall. I’m glad we did the guided tour, it really bought things to life and the guides knowledge was impressive. A fascinating visit and we would never have thought of it without TripAdvisor to tell us it existed!”