Haunted Castles in Austria

Austria Castles are exquisite works of art and architecture, that speaks much about the culture and creativity of the countrymen. These are the residences of the royal families in Austria who ruled the country successfully through generations. Though monarchy has abolished completely from this European country, the inhabitants of Austria have preserved these architectural works for the creativities and imagination involved in erecting them.

There are stories and legends of ghosts and nightly hauntings surrounding these impressive castles.....

The Bernstein castle was approximately built in the 9th century.

The castle thrones on massive rock in the "Tauchental". Historically, the Bernstein Castle was first recognized as the Hungarian border castle in the 13th century. A large part of the castle was destroyed by lightning in 1536. One of the towers was hit by lightning in 1648. Most of the explosives were stored in the tower, which caused the inside of the castle to be destroyed almost completely. The castle was rebuilt, this time in the barock and renaissance style.

There were rooms for rent inside the castle around the First World War, mostly due to an economy crisis. The castle was under the ownership of the "Almasi Family". The castle turned officially into a hotel in 1953 and is owned by the Berger-Almasi family since 1982 now.

The castle and its ghosts:

The ghost of Lady Cathalina Frescobaldi is supposed to be showing herself in form of a white woman from time to time. Lady Frescobaldi was supposed to been caught red handed cheating on her husband in the 15th century. The husband buried her alive. There was a photo made in 1913, which supposedly captured Catharina in a cloud of fog.

A lot of people believe that this phenomenon isn't Catharina, but Celtic shadow people. This believe is supported, since the castle used to be a holy place of the Celtics.

There is also the "Red Ivan"

The "Red Ivan" is supposed to be the ghost of Count Ivan von Guessing who stirred up things as a knight in the 13th century. He was beating a bishop to death, broke promises and killed many knights of the emperor. Nobody knows exactly, how he died himself. He is haunting the castle by showing himself beside children's beds, which spend the night there. He has been described with flaming red hair, a skirt at knee length and an evil laugh!

Would you be interested to stay at at castle hotel for your vacation?

Haunted castles, like Schloss Bernstein, are open for business. So get your scare on and book a trip to the beautiful country of Austria!

The surroundings of the Therasburg Castle are deserted and there is a sense of a depressing gloom, untouchable but very much consistent across the land. There seem to be secrets everywhere! An icy wind is blowing across the moss covered stones. The big rocks are appearing to speak to you; the silence is creeping between the old trees.

The Therasburg castle is hard to find, you will have to turn left 2 kilometers behind Missingdorf. With your first look, you will not see anything! A small road is leading you the way.

The castle is in ownership of the Attems-Heiligenkreuz Family since 1670. The castle owner believes that it is quite possible for hauntings to take place here. It would be a surprise if not, after all that has happened at this place in the last centuries.

Many members of the Attems-Heiligenkreuz family have seen the ghost of a blond, curly haired boy in the room with the fireplace. He will just stand there and then disappear again. He is supposedly the cousin of the current count, the son of his uncle. He died at the age of four during the Second World War at Therasburg. His ghost was first seen in the 1950’s. The count played a lot of ping pong in his younger years. He was keeping the ping pong balls in a drawer. When the uncle died in 1973, all the ping pong balls were bouncing around like crazy in this drawer. This happened a lot during that year.

The ghost of his grandfather was visiting the count one night. His current wife was also a witness of this appearance. The grandfather was buried in the family grave since 1938, but one night some terrible noise was waking up the couple. The noise seemed to have come from outside. It sounded like galloping hooves and a carriage. There was a yell, and the carriage stopped. Somebody jumped off the carriage and disappeared into the house. The couple ran to the window and looked outside. Everything was calm and silent. There was no horse or carriage. People are sure, that this had to have been the grandfather; since that day was the day of his death and driving a carriage had always been one of his favorite things to do. The count is living in his castle by himself now, surrounded by silence and strange, ghostly noises. He has never seen anything, but he says that he does not feel alone!

1568. Its new owner, Sigmund Graf von Hardegg, restored it there soon after. In 1730, the castle was run down once again. And once again, it was restored. This time by the plans of Franz Anton Pilgram in barock style and The Riegersburg castle was mentioned for the first time in 1427. The castle was in very bad shape by architecture.

There are several stories of ghosts and hauntings known around Riegersburg castle. The in 1595 decapitated "Count Hardegg" is haunting the halls and surroundings of the castle. You will be able to hear his footsteps at some nights. There is one room in the castle, where the bed is disturbed and the covers and pillow look like somebody has slept in them. But nobody was sleeping there. Even if the door will be locked the day before, the bed will be disturbed once again. There even was flour put on the floor, to be able to notice some "ghost tracks". But without success! So what is going on in this room? Does somebody have a spare key; is somebody carefully wiping out the ghost tracks in the flour? Or is there really a ghost sleeping at night? These questions remain unsolved......

There are reports of a mysterious black woman on the Pinzgauer Bundes-Street since 1981. This street is running through the counties of Pinzgau, Pomgau and Erzdiozese in Salzburg. Drivers are reporting a black woman, who will stop cars to be able to get a ride. As soon as she is inside the car she will say:”You would have had an accident, if you would not have stopped to pick me up!” Then she will disappear immediately. Many people believe, that this black woman is a waitress from St. Peitz in Pongau, who was killed in a car accident on this same road at the age of 23 just one year before. The young woman drove off the road onto the parallel train tracks. Her car was caught by the train and pulled several meters. According to police reports, the woman was not dead immediately, but was screaming terribly from the wreck. Is the black woman a hallucination, or a phantasy? Nobody will ever know!