Until just a few years ago, one of the castles in this complex was completely invisible. Buried under centuries of overgrown trees on a hilltop above the valley, nobody in the town of Reutte really knew because only a very few people had even heard the stories that there was an entire fortification sitting right above them. When they climbed to the top and cleared the trees, suddenly there it was. A tiny fortress that had been hiding in plain sight for over two hundred years.
That’s Ehrenberg. A place that keeps revealing itself.
Where It All Starts — The Valley
The town of Reutte sits in the Tyrolean Alps just inside the Austrian border, about 20 minutes south from Füssen and the Neuschwanstein area. Drive south out of town and you can’t miss it. The ruined fortresses are clearly visible from town, and drivers heading south on the Innsbruck road pass directly in between the ruins and under the spectacular Highline 179 suspension bridge.
Down in the valley floor, at the base of it all, sits the Ehrenberger Klause — the original fortification that started everything. Dating to 1317, it functioned as a dam, a military fortification, and most importantly a customs post. This is a very strategic place because it lies on the 2,000-year-old Via Claudia Augusta — a route through the Alps that connected Venice, Italy with Germany, transporting salt, the white gold of the Middle Ages. Anyone who controlled the castles controlled the trade. Today the Klause houses the visitor center and museum, and it’s the natural starting point for everything that follows.
This is where the hiking aspect enters. Once you leave the military gate in the valley, it goes up from there. You can either hike up, or take the funiculer like the one at Reichenback Falls in Meiringen, Switzerland.
The Ehrenberg Liner, provides barrier-free access from the valley floor up to the castle ruins for those who’d rather not tackle the forest trail on foot. Either way, the views from the ruins over the valley are worth every step.
Up the Hill — Ehrenberg Castle Ruin
Ehrenberg Castle was built in 1296 on a dramatic rocky peak directly above the valley. This is the anchor of the whole complex — the Gothic ruin that gives everything its name. The original Burg Ehrenberg was built to protect the trade route which salt traders used to send their wares to southern Germany. Over the centuries it was captured, recaptured, damaged, and eventually abandoned — then sold off and used as a quarry. A preservation organization called Rettet Ehrenberg — “Save Ehrenberg” — eventually stepped in, and the slow work of restoration has been going on ever since.
Across the Valley — Highline 179
Now here’s where it starts to get extraordinary. A third fort.
Directly across the valley on the opposite hill sits Fort Claudia. The Fort is named after Claudia de’ Medici, the wife of one of the rulers of the Tyrol, and it was built specifically because that hillside had been used by enemies to flank and attack Ehrenberg from above. The solution: put a castle over there too.
The problem, historically, was getting between them. Today, that problem has been solved in the most spectacular way imaginable. Highline 179 extends at an altitude of 114 meters above the valley and connects the Ehrenberg ruins with Fort Claudia, spanning 403 meters across the pass below. It’s a Tibet-style pedestrian suspension bridge — grated underfoot, swaying gently, the Austrian Alps spreading out in every direction. After the obligatory examination, it was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest pedestrian bridge in the Tibet style.
And the way they started construction? A drone flew a silk thread from one hillside to the other, laying the foundation for the entire project. A single silk thread. Then came 77 tons of steel cable and engineering.
The bridge is named Highline 179, simply enough, after the road that runs beneath it — State Road 179.
Higher Still — The Castle That Appeared
Above Ehrenberg Castle, on the highest hilltop in the complex, sits Schlosskopf, the fourth castle in the complex. And this is the part of the story that earns its own section.
Only a few years ago, nobody knew it was there. It was completely covered with trees. From Reutte you couldn’t see anything. Historian and local champion Armin Walch and his crew cleared the summit, and an 18th-century fortress simply emerged from the landscape. The original plans for a fort on the Schlosskopf stem from the 17th century, when the necessity for protection became clear in 1703 — local Tyroleans managed to recapture Ehrenberg Castle from occupying Bavarians by hauling cannon up a forest trail to these very heights. The massive fort was ultimately never occupied by the military and was sold off, then swallowed by the forest for centuries.
To reach it, a second inclined lift (under construction while we were there) — the Top Liner — opened in 2023, taking visitors to the highest point in the Ehrenberg Castle World, overcoming a height difference of nearly 190 meters. The valley station sits right next to the top of the Ehrenberg Liner, making it easy to move between levels.
The Bottom Line
Ehrenberg is an ensemble of castles — four elements built in different periods, layered across centuries and hillsides, each one telling a different chapter of the same long story.
You start on the valley floor in the Middle Ages. You ride a funicular to a Gothic ruin.
You cross a record-breaking suspension bridge to a Baroque fortress.
And then you climb to a hilltop castle that spent two centuries invisible under a forest canopy.
The Practical
After using Special Private Tours to book our Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castle tours, we thought it would be fun to get an actual private tour to the Ehrenberg Castle and Highline 179. Let’s just say Amir is an amazing tour guide owner of Special Private Tours. He thinks of pretty much everything ahead of time and makes your tour even that much more special.
Special Private Tours guide Amir, with Dianne and Gary of JMO
For a discount on the Ehrenberg / Highline 179 tour, click the link and enter in “JMO2022”! And yes, as full disclaimer, JMO will get a percentage that becomes part of our yearly income.
You’ve probably already deduced by now that this journey is a half-day minimum. It can easily turn into a full day. You’ll be so fascinated that you probably won’t notice the time.
Parking is highly regulated, but not in a bad way. Pay attention to signs and attendants and you’ll be fine.
Journey Moore Often — because the best stories can often be one hill higher than you expected.