Kastel-Staadt Hermitage

What an impressive complex and church was built on the heights

In the 13th century, two chambers were first cut into the red sandstone rock.
Around 1600 the Franciscan Roméry had a two-story chapel built. Your upper floor was connected to the upper rock chamber.
In 1833, the future King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Received the ruins as a gift. On his behalf, a burial chapel for Johann von Böhmen (later called "The Blind") was built there by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1834/35. Between 1838 and 1945 John's bones were buried in a sarcophagus in the chapel.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) used the remainder of the old building, had stained glass windows installed and built a chapel with triple arcade windows and an Italian-style bell gable above it. The king's bones were placed in a classical sarcophagus.
In 1842 an altar was added, which had been designed according to the proposals of the Prussian king. The ancestral table of the royal family was integrated into the chapel as a fresco.

Visible from far away, the hermitage is high above the Saar Valley