The Archbishops of Mainz had the Mildenburg castle built at the end of the 12th century to secure their powerful position and to serve as a customs office. Around 1200, the castle keep was added, the first official reference dates to 1226. Rather diverse periods in history affected the castle: extending, capturing, damaging and reconstructing.
Mildenburg the seat of the Oberamtmann, the Archbishop's local administrator until 1803. It then passed to the Princes of Leiningen before Carl Gottlieb Horstig purchased it in 1825. It now houses a museum of icons and contemporary art. The castle’s inner ward once held the Teutonenstein, a 5 m-tall sandstone column found on Greinberg, the inscription of which is still a puzzle to this day.
The Château du Lude is one of the many great châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. Le Lude is the most northerly château of the Loire Valley and one of the last important historic castles in France, still inhabited by the same family for the last 260 years. The château is testimony to four centuries of French architecture, as a stronghold transformed into an elegant house during the Renaissance and the 18th century. The monument is located in the valley of Le Loir. Its gardens have evolved throughout the centuries.