Top 20 Castles around Donaustauf

If the battery of the e-bike starts to run low, there is a free charging station opposite the lock, which really impressed me.

King Maximilian II had the Royal Villa built as a summer residence on the Ostenbastei between 1854 and 1856, designed by Ludwig Foltz. Today, it houses the Regensburg office of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.

The Villa Park, the eastern counterpart to the Herzogspark to the west and connected to it by the avenues surrounding the old town, owes its existence to none other than the Bavarian King Maximilian II. In 1852, he spent an extended period in Regensburg to stabilize his ailing health through supposedly healing Danube baths. At that time, he realized that there was no suitable accommodation for the royal family in the cathedral city and commissioned the architect and sculptor Ludwig Foltz to build a summer residence. The park is divided into three parts. The area to the east is still popularly known as the "Orphanage Garden" because it once served as a vegetable garden for the adjacent municipal orphanage. The park is visually divided by the former city moat. Finally, to the west is the actual front garden of the Royal Villa, which is also open to the public. The entire complex is owned by the Free State of Bavaria. The municipal gardening department maintains the park based on a 1981 agreement between the City of Regensburg and the Free State of Bavaria. Source: https://www.regensburg.de/leben/parks-in-regensburg/villapark

Few remains of the ruins, but very beautiful and photogenic.

Regendorf Castle The Lords of Regendorf, initially referred to as "Lords of Regeldorf", were first mentioned at the beginning of the 13th century. In 1490, Hans Regeldorfer of Regeldorf and Wolfsegg is entered in the Land Register. In 1475, he appears in the entourage of Duke Ludwig IX at the Landshut wedding. Hans Regeldorfer was married twice, he left behind two daughters and no male descendants, and so Regendorf passed into other hands as a male fief after his death. In 1515, the castle was rebuilt for the then owner, the Regensburg Imperial Mint Master Martin Lerch. He had to have a crucifixion group erected for the manslaughter of a mint clerk in 1513. This is now in the apse of the Minorite Church in Regensburg. In 1699, Franziska Adelheid von Braittenburg sold the Regendorf castle and manor to Philipp Anton Leopold Freiherr von Oberndorff, who came from the Upper Palatinate line of the Oberndorff family. They rebuilt the castle around 1840 and added a floor. In 1884, Regendorf Castle was sold to the Imperial Councilor Freiherr von Faber in Stein near Nuremberg and later to the Counts of Faber-Castell. In 1916, it was purchased from them by the royal Bavarian treasurer Eduard von Harnier. As the von Harnier family was known to the National Socialist authorities as anti-National Socialists, they had to vacate the castle in 1936 and sell it to the city of Regensburg. Regendorf Castle is a complex dating back to 1515 and consists of two parallel wings that are connected in the middle by an intermediate building. The main building is a three-story hipped roof building with an H-shaped floor plan. The eastern wing has two four-storey round towers and a garden staircase. The castle chapel at the north end of the east wing dates from 1688. The former stables are a two-storey stable barn with a half-hipped roof from 1830. Remains of the terraced landscape garden with staircase from the 18th century can be found to the west of the castle. The park enclosure, with a fence to the south, otherwise a stone wall with stone pillars, dates from around 1840. Source: Excerpts from www.wikipedia.de

The castle is gigantic. It is not open to the public. In winter there is a Christmas market with admission.

Heilsberg Castle Ruins In the last third of the 12th century, Ulrich and Wernhardus from Heilsberg appeared in documents for the first time. Since Ulrich's successor Ekbert, they were also vassals of Eggmühl and fiefs of the Bavarian duke. They were thus in the middle of the power struggle between the Wittelsbach dukes and the Regensburg bishops. In a contract, Duke Ludwig of Kelheim had to give up a castle that was already under construction near Heilsberg, which the Heilsbergers were obviously supposed to receive as a fief. Over the course of the 13th century, Ekbert and his son Ulrich repeatedly tried to use their bailiwick rights to alienate property from the bishop. The bishop accused them of forcing their subjects to perform unjust feudal labor in order to illegally expand their castle. In addition, the Heilsbergers had bloody feuds with the Paulsdorfers and with Konrad von Hohenfels. In the first third of the 14th century, the male line of Heilsberg died out, followed by a series of owners, including the powerful Upper Palatinate knightly family of Notthafft. It was not until around 1500 that the Wittelsbachs were finally able to take over the Heilsberg domain, and in 1505 it was assigned to the Palatinate-Neuburg line. The castle was probably already abandoned in the 16th century, and on Apian's map of 1568 it is already marked as a ruin. A local support group has recently been working to save the ruins. The most striking remains of the castle are the keep, which dates from around 1200 and has a side length of 7.5 meters with 2.5 m thick walls. This is evidenced by its masonry, which consists of smooth blocks and humped blocks with 5 to 10 centimetre wide edges; the ring wall fragment with the archway is so deep in the ground that it is almost impossible to date it. Among the later extensions to the castle that are known to have been made, there is also a new gate in 1498. In 1474, a new bridge and a new gate were built. In 1498, the castle was repaired after a fire, and work on the bower, the new parlor and the stables is known to have been carried out. Recently, the keep has been secured and renovated at great expense, and the buried interior of the tower has also been uncovered. The extremely deep, almost circumferential moat separates the castle grounds from the Heilsberg plateau on two sides. Source: Extracts from www.burgenseite.de / www./burgen/detail/burgruine-heilsberg/178

Somehow a mystical-looking place