Not all medieval castles survived through inexpressible walls. Burg Eltz managed to cross more than eight centuries without being destroyed, thanks to a combination of geographical position, historical circumstances, diplomacy and family choices that still owns it today.
Hidden in the woods, not far from the Moselle valley, in Germany, Burg Eltz does not appear as the classic fortress perched on the top of a mountain.
It's almost hidden from the landscape.
The first documentary evidence dates back to the 12th century. In 1157 Rudolf von Eltz appears as a witness in a document by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, and some parts of the current Romanesque mastius date back to that period.
The castle was also located in a strategic position, along a commercial road that connected the Moselle with the Eifel and Maifeld.
In the following centuries the complex continued to grow.
But Eltz did not become a great royal palace.
Above all, it remained the fortified home of a noble family, built in a time when the German territory was fragmented and feuded, regional wars and political changes could quickly change the balances of an entire region.
The most striking feature, however, is not found in the towers.
He's in his owners.
The Eltz family has been linked to the castle since the middle of the 12th century and today the complex belongs to the 34th generation of the family.
During the Middle Ages several branches of the same family shared the fortress.
In 1268 the castle was divided between three branches of the family, which continued to live in it according to a particular form of common property.
Each developed its part within the complex.
The result was something unusual: different buildings that grew next to each other and above all upwards, because the available space on the rock was limited.
It is precisely this evolution to confer today to Eltz its unmistakable profile, made of towers, winding roofs, grating structures and seemingly superimposed factory bodies.
Around, however, Europe continued to change.
Wars and new weapons erased or transformed many medieval castles.
Eltz also suffered a real siege during the 14th-century Eltz Faida, but was not destroyed. After that conflict it was no longer the scene of important military actions.
In 1689, during the Palatinate War of Succession, Hans Anton zu Eltz-Üttingen and the community of nearby Müden managed to prevent the destruction of the castle.
With the 19th century its meaning changed.
The ancient fortresses no longer had the military function of a time and Germany itself was going through the process that would lead to unification.
Eltz began a new phase.
Between the middle and the end of the 19th century, the family realized an important contribution to consolidation and restoration, however, choosing to preserve as much as possible the historical structure instead of radically transforming it according to the romantic taste of the time.
Still today there are historical environments, wooden structures, furnishings, weapons, works of art and collections related to the long life of the family.
The castle still belongs to the Eltz family and part of its surroundings is open to visitors.
And this is perhaps what distinguishes Burg Eltz from many other European fortresses.
It is not only a preserved monument to remember a missing family.
The same line linked to those walls in the Middle Ages continues to occupy the castle more than eight hundred years later.
They're missing.
Confini were redesigned.
Germany that existed when the first walls were raised did not even resemble the country of today.
Yet, immersed in the same landscape, Eltz remained there.
More than a fairytale castle, it is an extraordinary testimony of more than eight centuries of European history, now almost intact.