Last week we visited castle Amerongen. Arriving there Joren was a bit disappointed 'cause it looked more like a big (old boring) house. And he was right of course, nowadays a lot of buildings or 'big houses' carry the name castle but it doesn't actually look like one. At least not in the mind of a 6 year old who has read lots of books about knights and castles.
So today we go to 'Holland's finest castle' to give the kids an idea of a real castle before we go back to a country with no castles ;o) We arrive around coffee-time and we enter the castle grounds through a real castle gate. The first sight of the castle is truly impressive, the moat around the castle, the towers, the knight on top with the flag, yes this is a real castle!
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Some more info: www.kasteeldehaar.nl
De Haar Castle is Gothic fairy-tale castle and was re-built from 1892 till 1912 with incorporation of the large 15th century ruins of the original castle.
De Haar Castle was founded in the 14th century on sediment deposits along a blind arm of the river Rhine. It was first mentioned in 1391. Originally the owner of De Haar Castle was a member of the Van de Haar family, who as a manservant of the Prince-bishop of Utrecht, had enough prestige to have a fortified residence built for himself and his family. What this residence looked like was never registered. In 1449 the castle became property of the Van Zuylen family through the marriage between Josyna van de Haar and Dirk van Zuylen.
In 1890, baron Etienne van Zuylen van Nijevelt, inherited the impressive ruins of De Haar Castle. He had always been fascinated about his family history and had fantasized about rebuilding De Haar Castle on a grand scale as a monument of his family history. In 1887, he had married the French baroness Helene de Rothschild (member of the extremely wealthy De Rothschild family), which enabled him to make his fantasy come true.
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