User:Shugal/Castles along the Rhine

I'm putting together information about castles along the Rhine river, with a few notable churches and monasteries mixed in, from Frankfurt am Main airport (actually from Mainz/Wiesbaden) to Köln (Cologne). This is intended for visiting relatives but may be of use to other travellers as well. The order is by Rhine Kilometer streamup.

Most of the castles are either ruins or partially (and not necessarily historically correctly) reconstruction, only very few escaped destcruction. These survivors are:


 * Brömserburg in Rüdesheim
 * Pfalzgrafenstein in Kaub
 * Marksburg in Braubach

Reasons for a castle to become a ruin are mainly:


 * Loss of military function in modern age, often a palace is built instead,
 * Extinction of the noble family, and the heir is not interested in the castle,
 * the French, more precisely king Louis XIV. during the Nine Years' War and Napoleon Bonaparte.