Rheinfels Castle is a castle ruin located above the left (west) bank of the Rhine in Sankt Goar, Germany. It was started in 1245 by Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen. After expansions, it was the largest fortress in the Middle Rhein Valley between Koblenz and Mainz. It was slighted by French Revolutionary Army troops in 1797. It is the largest castle overlooking the Rhine, and historically covered five times its current area.
Burg Rheinfels
The castle as it appeared in 1607
View of Rheinfels Castle from across the Rhein
Sankt Goar is a town on the west bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Hunsrück-Mittelrhein, whose seat is in Emmelshausen.
View of St. Goar (in top half of picture) from Patersberg
Sankt Goar seen from the northwest
St. Goar – excerpt from Matthäus Merian’s Topographia Hassiae (1655)
Sankt Goar about 1860; at left, above the harbour basin, is the eight-sided treadmill crane from the 16th century