- Sommerau
Sommerau castle ruins from the 13th century Far away from through traffic, the castle ruins of Sommerau in the Ruwertal are extremely picturesque. The picturesque ensemble of castle ruins, Schlossberg vineyards and waterfall in Sommerau was honored by the DLR Mosel in 2019 as a beacon of biodiversity as part of the "Lively Moselle Vineyards" initiative.
Sommerau castle ruins from the 13th century.
Far away from through traffic, the ruins of the Sommerau castle in the Ruwertal are extremely picturesque. You can get to it either via Gutweiler or Gusterath-Tal.
Sommerau Castle was built on a rock spur around which the Ruwer river flowed on three sides. This rock tongue, which is about 45 m long, has been broken through at the narrowest point in order to use the slope of the Ruwer to drive a mill. This created a circular mountain and drained the former loop in the valley.
In the 13th century the castle was built by the Trier knight family "von der Brücke", who had their ancestral seat in the Barbarathermen. The Trier aldermen Walram, who emerged from the family of the Lords of the Bridge, entrusted Sommerau Castle to the Archbishop of Trier in 1303. As an Electorate of Trier fiefdom, the castle was later transferred to the Luxembourg knight family "von der Fels". The castle had fallen into disrepair by the beginning of the 19th century at the latest. In 1853, the state bought the ruins from four Trier citizens so that they could no longer serve as a quarry. In 1902 it was sold again to a private citizen under the obligation of maintenance and inseparability from the associated lands, which was entered in the land register.
The facility measures 40 x 10 m. In the west, the remains of the former palace or residential building tower up to a height of 10 m, and in the east, the four-storey square keep, which with its four floors also served as a residential tower, is around 16 m high. Apparently an ascending wooden battlement led to a door about 3 m high. To the south on the fourth floor there is a large rectangular door with a toilet bay, the masonry of which is placed on consoles made of red sandstone. The residential building shows, recognizable from the inside, three full floors and half a fourth with the protruding remainder of a chimney that begins on the second floor. Only remnants of the rising masonry can be seen of the surrounding wall that supported the battlements. The remaining transverse walls are in the ground, the ground plan can only be determined through excavations.
Opening times: freely accessible
