Mouse Tower, Bingen am Rhein, Germany

The Mouse Tower (Mäuseturm) is a stone tower on a small island in the Rhine. The Romans were the first to build a structure on this site. It later became part of Franconia, and it fell and had to be rebuilt many times. Hatto II, the Archbishop of Mainz, restored the tower in 968. The story of how it came to be called the 'Mouse Tower' comes from a folk tale (Hatto was being eaten alive by mice in a tower). In 1298 the structure became an official customs collection tower. It was destroyed by a French army in 1689, then rebuilt in 1855 as a Prussian signal tower.

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User Reviews

Emilian Kavalski (5 years ago)
An interesting historical landmark at the junction of Rhine and Nahe rivers

Carlos Villalobos (5 years ago)
great tower with interesting legend. (google it.. ) best way to see it is parking in Bingen, walking along the trails.

Johannes (6 years ago)
Beautiful and historical place!

Dan Brewer (6 years ago)
Kind of hard to get a good view from either side of the Rhine. The legend is kind of neat though and on the western side of the Rhine is a great park

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Sigmaringen Castle was first mentioned in the year 1077 in the chronicles of Petershausen monastery. The oldest parts of the castle are concealed beneath the alterations made during the 17th and the 19th centuries. The secret of the earliest settlement built on this defendable rock will never be fully revealed: large-scale excavation work would be necessary, which the extensive land development renders impossible. Judging from the many Roman remains unearthed in the area around Sigmaringen, the 12th century keep known as the 'Roman Tower' could be traced back to a Roman predecessor.

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These remains give us a good idea of how the castle might have looked during the 12th century.

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