Schloss Ortenburg, Heritage castle in Ortenburg, Germany

Schloss Ortenburg is a Renaissance palace in the Lower Bavarian town of Ortenburg, sitting on a hill above the surrounding village and organized around a central courtyard. Several of its rooms still hold original furnishings, wooden ceilings, and collections related to the history of the local area.

Count Joachim von Ortenburg began building the palace in 1562, establishing a Protestant enclave inside Catholic Bavaria at a time of deep religious division. The Ortenburg family had held power in the region since the Middle Ages, long before the current building took shape.

The palace church, created in 1697 from Friedrich Casimir's 1628 ancestral hall, keeps a painted maple-wood Renaissance ceiling with coffers and the family coat of arms. Its altar painting shows a Descent from the Cross. The former tournament ground beside the palace now hosts knight games and concerts.

The palace is open only through guided tours, so it is worth reaching out to the museum ahead of time to arrange a visit. The building sits on a hill, so getting there requires a short uphill walk from the village below.

The estate sits on the territory of the former County of Ortenburg, which was a direct imperial fief, meaning its rulers answered to the emperor rather than to the Bavarian duke. This legal status is what allowed the count to introduce the Reformation in the 1560s while the surrounding region stayed Catholic.