Zülpich

Zülpich Castle is considered one of the most important and best-preserved Gothic castles in the Rhineland: with its unique silhouette, it still dominates the townscape today. As early as late antiquity, the Romans fortified the core of the settlement of Zülpich on the Mühlenberg with a ring of walls. These fortifications continued to be used well into the Middle Ages. After several changes of rule, the Archbishops of Cologne finally secured ownership of the town in the second half of the 14th century. In 1369, they began building a new castle complex on the foundations of previous buildings belonging to the Counts of Jülich, whose walls and gates are largely identical to the buildings that remain today.

Zülpich Castle was a regular four-towered structure whose south-western wall was integrated into the town fortifications. The fortress and administrative building was surrounded on all sides by a moat, part of which was filled with water. A main gate led into the town, while a separate outer gate served as an "escape and hiding place" leading directly to the outside. After the complex, including a distillery building added in 1847, had stood empty for decades, Zülpich Castle came under new ownership in 2003, with the new owners securing and preserving the site.

The fortress is now a cultural centre: in addition to residential and commercial premises, the Zülpich History Workshop was established there in 2009 and the Hubert Salentin painting exhibition in 2012. The north tower can also be used as a viewing tower. 
At the end of the 19th century, increasing traffic meant that the archways had to be raised or the city walls on both sides of the gates had to be broken through. The Cologne, Bach and Münster gates, the latter originally a double gate like the others, are still largely preserved in their original condition. The Weiertor gate, destroyed in the Second World War, was spectacularly rebuilt in its medieval form by 2023.