Thursday, September 3, 2009

Escape to Zipperer Castle

Whenever I wonder if I'll ever be able to afford a house in San Francisco (motto: If you could afford to live here, you wouldn't), my mind wanders to a web site I found long ago while idly searching the web. It's for Die Tannenburg (aka, Schloss Tannenburg or Burg Tannenburg, which means either Castle Tannenburg or Fort Tannenburg, though I like the idea of having a castle in the family rather than a fort), a bed and breakfast in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

As you can see from these photos I nabbed, it's a wonderful old building in beautiful countryside. Originally constructed either 800 or 900 years ago, the castle was purchased in 1931 by Ernst Zipperer. I have no idea if I'm related to the Zipperer family that still owns the castle; though one part of my family did come from Baden-Württemberg, Zipperer is a very German name and not at all uncommon there.

Anyway, Schloss Zipperer aka Tannenburg is a place I'd like to visit sometime. If you're interested, visit its web site.

There's more history on Burg Tannenburg here in English and here in German. Here's what German-language Wikipedia has to say.

6 comments:

atrin@live.de said...

hey, im from germany,the castle called die tannenburg is from my uncle, he is the owner of it (Ernst Zipperer) My mother is his sister. i just found your article about it and i thought if you want to knOW something about this castle, you can ask me :D

jzipperer said...

Thanks! Great to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

Hello John,

I'm Atrin's cousin and my Father owns the castle.
Come and visit our place!
IT's lovley!!!!!!!

Till

jzipperer said...

I'd love to visit it if I get over to Germany again. Thanks!

Jerry said...

I have a wonderful etching of Ulm Germany that was created by Ernst Zipperer. It seems to be an original. It is the city with the cathedral in the back ground. I have been doing a lot of research, but haven't found any like it. Do you know of anyone I can contact to get more information on his work? Thank you very much.
Jerry and Vivian

jzipperer said...

Jerry:
Thanks for the comment. I don't know the answer, but you might want to contact the person who posted the first comment on this post; he is Ernt's nephew. I believe his email address is the name he used in his comment above.
Thanks.
John Z.