Sabine krombholz’s eyes get brighter and brighter the more rooms she gets to see in her old, "second home". There, the billiard table on the upper floor, "I used to play there secretly with my friend doris laufer when her parents weren’t around". Or the memory under the roof, "wonderful, and always be careful not to get caught". The garden where the neighbor’s children used to play when the lords of the castle were not at home.
Ingenious idea
And on sunday, the day of the open monument, sabine krombholz (nee blattner from bimbach) was allowed to take an official look around the castle, under the guidance of gottfried schafer, the owner of the castle. And not only krombholz enjoys the tour through rooms that were last open to the public in 2003 for the district’s local heritage day and the 300th anniversary of the castle.
When they took over the castle in 1976, schafer tells his 20 or so listeners (who were led in groups by different people throughout the day), they had to repaint 80 windows at once, so to speak, to warm them up. "Then at some point the state office for the preservation of historical monuments came and asked us what we were actually going to do there," says schafer. And after it turned out that "we hadn’t done anything criminal, we were allowed to continue under the auspices of the office".
The requirements, for which the office is not only grooved with private builders, were high, and many a dark wallpaper, which the new owners wanted to rub off, they were not allowed to rub off. "Then my daughter had the ingeniously simple idea of covering the walls with light-colored fabric, the state office was thrilled, and we had brighter rooms."
Art historical treasures
In which the family lives only partially, the older one, i.E. The men’s wing, has been renovated, but is not inhabited all the time. What schafer has to offer his visitors in this wing are art-historical treasures, which in some places simply take the viewer’s breath away.
For example, a small, in-house chapel, which a former inhabitant of the noble family of the "fuchs zu bimbach" had built in. His first wife (protestant) had died, and because the then "fox" a career at the viennese imperial court and marriage with a (catholic) woman was in the house, converted that fox and love to build a catholic chapel. A special feature is the altarpiece, which shows a nursing madonna.
Knighthood instead of nobility
What sounds like immeasurable wealth was in reality more of an illusion. Despite their possessions, the fuchsens did not make it into the real aristocracy and remained more of a knightly family. The castle itself is also equipped accordingly, for example with a chinese mural instead of the chinese collection of vases that was customary at the time.
"Many murals we discovered under several layers of wallpaper," said schafer. Some of the wallpaper, such as an animal scene on several walls, was bought in and not made for the palace.
And just as the old paintings appeared under the wallpaper, the palace still offers a highly interesting insight into the life of the upper classes of the time.