Egg Castle

Schloss Egg in Bernried, Lower Bavaria, was first mentioned in 1103 as the seat of the Knights Eckher von Eckh, built as a moated castle in the Mettenbach valley. Its most striking surviving feature is the Hungerturm, a keep roughly 825 years old that at 45 metres is the tallest castle tower in all of Bavaria. In the mid-19th century, the castle was romantically remodeled in the Neo-Gothic style, giving it the crenellated, pointed-arch appearance it retains today.

It's important to be precise about where hotel guests actually stay: the accommodation and restaurant occupy a separate historic building, the old Wirtschaftsgebäude (estate building), constructed in 1589 at the foot of the castle and also known locally as the Burgstall. This building — not the main Neo-Gothic castle itself — has housed a small castle hotel and restaurant since 1963, today offering around 6 individually furnished rooms. The main castle building, meanwhile, remains a family residence that opens to the public on a seasonal, ticketed basis for guided interior tours.

The distinction between the historic castle and the separate 1589 estate building where guests actually sleep is genuinely easy to miss given how the property markets itself, but it's a meaningful one for anyone specifically hoping to spend a night within the medieval keep or Neo-Gothic halls — that experience isn't part of the hotel stay, though the Burgstall building is itself centuries old and set directly at the castle's foot.

The castle's seasonal visiting hours — Sundays and holidays only in April and October, daily from May through September — give day visitors genuine, independently ticketed access to the interior via guided tour, with admission of €10 for adults and €5 for children from age 6, paid at the door; no advance booking is required for individual visitors, though groups of 10 or more should register ahead.

The Hungerturm's status as Bavaria's tallest castle keep is a genuinely notable architectural distinction, giving Schloss Egg a specific claim to fame within the broader landscape of Bavarian castle towers, most of which are considerably more modest in scale.

Guest reviews for the hotel are consistently warm despite the accommodation's separation from the main castle — one recurring theme in reviews describes the property as feeling like stepping back into medieval times, a testament to how effectively the centuries-old Burgstall building and its surrounding castle grounds convey historic atmosphere even without guests sleeping inside the keep itself.

The Bavarian Forest (Bayerischer Wald) region surrounding Bernried offers extensive hiking and nature tourism, giving guests staying at Egg Castle a genuinely different, forest-and-nature-oriented regional context compared to the more urban or vineyard settings of many other castle-hotels in this collection.