Alte Burg (Bad Münstereifel)

The ringwall of the Alte Burg in Bad Münstereifel is a protected earthwork monument — the surviving remains of a 9th-century Carolingian refuge fortification in the Euskirchen district of North Rhine-Westphalia. The structure served the local population as a place of retreat during raids and also protected a dependent priory of the important Prüm Abbey. Such ringwall enclosures were not permanent castles in the later medieval sense but collective shelters, constructed across the Frankish realm primarily in response to Viking incursions. The earthen ramparts are still clearly legible in the landscape today, giving a tangible sense of the fortification's scale even without any standing masonry.