The next in our series on European castles is a little closer to home than the other castles we will be featuring. The lovely Nickie, is a direct descendant of the Rübenach family, one of the families that once owned the beautiful Burg Eltz castle!

Burg Eltz is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier in Germany.  In some parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, inheritance law required that the estate be divided between all successors. These successors, each of whose individual inheritance was too small to build a castle of his own, could build a castle together, where each owned one separate part for housing and all of them together shared the defensive fortification. This was known as a "Ganerbenburg", or castle belonging to a community of joint heirs, divided into several parts, and belonging to different families or different branches of a family; in this case the Rübenach, Rodendorf and Kempenich families. It is still owned by a branch of the Kempenich family that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago.
 
In 1472 the Rübenach house, built in the Late Gothic style, was completed. Remarkable are the Rübenach Lower Hall, which was heated by a large fireplace, one of forty in the 100 rooms, which shows that, for the Middle Ages, Eltz castle was the height of comfort. Between 1490 and 1540 the Rodendorf house was constructed, also in Late Gothic style. The Kempenich houses were finished about 1530.