Egloffstein Castle

Egloffstein Castle is a high-medieval hilltop fortress dating to around 1150, rising directly west of the village of Egloffstein in the Franconian Switzerland district of Forchheim, Bavaria. It served as the ancestral seat of the noble Egloffstein family, one of the prominent dynasties of the region, who held the estate well into the early modern period. Listed as a Bavarian Baudenkmal, the surviving fabric includes substantial masonry and a keep that punctuates the forested slope above the valley. The castle sits within the hiking trail network of Franconian Switzerland, making it a natural stop on walks through the area's rugged karst and river-valley landscape.