Marienburg Castle, Hannover, Germany

Over the weekend Ben and I took a drive to Marienburg Castle (Schloss Marienburg), being that this was my first visit to a real castle I was pretty excited actually.
Naturally as is customary on any weekend excursion we first stopped and had some lunch and a beer at the restaurant in the courtyard (reasonably priced and excellent food)
After lunch we took a stroll to the top of one of the towers to take some photos, and then we took the proper guided tour of the castle itself.
Unfortunately you cannot just wander about, and no photography is allowed inside the castle so you will really just have to make do with some photos from outside this time.

I will however outline some of the interesting points from the tour.

The castle was originally given as a gift by King George V of Hannover to his wife Marie as a 39th birthday present in 1857, at the time he gave her the hill which the castle was later to be built on, as well as the plans for the castle itself.  Because he was blind he had the architects create a model of the castle in cork so that he could "see" it himself, both George and his wife Marie were lovers of the arts and music, and it was envisioned that the castle would eventually become a cultural centre for these things.

In 1866 the war with the Prussians forced King George to flee and live in exile, however because Marie owned the land outright the Prussians could not claim it directly, and so she lived there for quite awhile anyway (which I found really cool, she was obviously a pretty hardcore lady), eventually she re-joined her husband in Austria.

Another interesting point are the ties to the English throne, since the House of Hannover actually had many kings who were kings of the United Kingdom, as well as of Hannover, and of course Queen Victoria was part of the family, feel free to read the links at the bottom for more information on that.

Another interesting fact was that the castle used a revolutionary form of underfloor heating which runs through most of the rooms, though it is not enough warmth to heat the larger rooms, it was really quite ahead of its time when the castle was built, and shows that the King and his architects were quite forward thinking.

This is the view from on top of the tower, looking down on the clock in the courtyard.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V_of_Hanover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_of_Saxe-Altenburg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hanover
http://www.reiseland-niedersachsen.de/en/marienburg-castle-1