Eltz Castle: Tickets, Hours & Visit Guide

Eltz Castle (Burg Eltz) is a medieval castle near Wierschem in Rhineland-Palatinate, hidden in the forest of the Elzbach valley a few kilometres north of the Moselle between Koblenz and Cochem. In the 2026 season it opens daily from 29 March to 1 November; an adult ticket costs €14 and includes the guided tour and the treasury. You get there by car or by train and bus 365 to the Burg Eltz car park near Wierschem, then walk the last stretch or take a €2 shuttle bus.

Below you’ll find all prices, opening hours, the ways to get there, how the tour works and the best time to visit, followed by a short history of one of the most beautiful castles in Germany.

Eltz Castle tickets & opening hours (as of October 2026)

Tickets are sold at the castle; one ticket covers the guided tour, the inner courtyard and the treasury. The official website does not list an online pre-sale for individual visitors.

Ticket / item	Price or time
Adults	€14
Students, visitors with disabilities	€7
Family ticket (2 adults + children under 18)	€34
Children up to 6 years	free
Groups of more than 20 (per person)	€13
School classes (per child)	€6
Season 2026	29 March – 1 November, daily incl. public holidays
Opening	from 9:30 a.m.
Last guided tour	5:30 p.m.
Treasury	9:30 a.m. – 6:15 p.m.
Winter (November–March)	closed

The official site gives the last admission at the castle gate at around 5 p.m. in one place and 5:30 p.m. in another, so plan to arrive by early afternoon. A valid ticket is required for the castle grounds and for the castle restaurants. In 2026 parts of the inner courtyard (the half-timbering of the Kempenich house) and the carriage house in the outer bailey are under scaffolding because of restoration work.

Eltz Castle tour and treasury

The rooms of the castle are shown only on the guided tour, which starts at regular intervals from 9:30 a.m. in the upper courtyard and lasts about 35–40 minutes. Tours run mainly in German; English and French tours are offered, and groups should book foreign-language tours in advance with the castellan’s office. Free flyers with the tour text are available in various languages, among them English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, so English-speaking visitors can follow every room of a German tour.

Inside the castle the tour guide leads you through the Rübenach and Rodendorf houses: the armoury, the Rübenach Lower Hall of 1311 with a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the bed chamber, the Knights’ Hall of 1520, the Banner Hall and the 15th-century Rodendorf kitchen, all with original furniture, paintings and armour from eight centuries. The Kempenich house is not part of the tour. The treasury in the vaults of the Rübenach house can be visited on your own with the same ticket: more than 500 exhibits from nine centuries, above all gold and silver work from Augsburg and Nuremberg, plus glass, porcelain, jewellery and weapons.

Practical rules: photography for private use is allowed outdoors, in the courtyard and in the treasury, but not inside the castle, and drones are banned over the castle and the surrounding Eltz Forest nature reserve. Animals are not allowed indoors. For the best pictures of the castle, see our guide to photographing castles and palaces.

How to get to Eltz Castle

No public road leads up to the castle itself. Every visitor covers the last part on foot or by shuttle bus, which is a big part of the experience: the first view of the towers rising out of the forest is one of the great moments in German castle travel.

Getting there	How it works
Car	Sat-nav “Burg Eltz, Wierschem” → Burg Eltz car parks, then walk or shuttle
Shuttle bus	from the car parks, about every 10 minutes, €2 per person per journey (cash)
Train and bus	train to Hatzenport, then VRM RegioBus 365 to car park 1 (1 April – 1 November, about twice an hour)
Hiking from Moselkern	via Ringelsteiner Mühle, 2.5 km, about 45 minutes
Hiking from Karden	6 km, about 2 hours
Bicycle	Maifeld cycle path to the car parks or Moselle cycle path to Ringelsteiner Mühle, then on foot

Eltz Castle parking

The Burg Eltz car parks near Wierschem charge €4 per day for cars and motorbikes and €8 for cars with trailers, camper vans and coaches, cash only. From the castle parking lot you can walk along the road past the viewing platform or follow the footpath past the viewpoint shown on the 500-Deutsche-Mark banknote (1965–1992), about 20 minutes downhill through the forest. The shuttle saves the climb back up at the end of the day.

Hiking trails from Moselkern and Karden

The classic way in on foot starts in the Moselle valley at Moselkern and follows the Elzbach upstream via the Ringelsteiner Mühle. Longer options are the Moselsteig stage 20 and the “Eltzer Burgpanorama” Traumpfad (both about 13 km, around 4 hours), the route from Karden (6 km) and the walk from Pyrmont Castle (10.4 km). Wear proper shoes: the paths are forest trails.

How long to spend and the best time to visit

The castle itself recommends 2.5 to 3 hours from the moment you park your car: walk or shuttle, the tour, the treasury and a snack in the self-service restaurant in the bailey. Combine it with nearby Reichsburg Cochem and you have a full day trip in the Moselle valley.

Summer weekends and school holidays are the busiest days. The quietest times are weekdays in May, June, September and October, ideally right at 9:30 a.m. In October the autumn colours of the Eltz Forest make the setting especially picturesque, but remember that the season closes on 1 November.

History of Burg Eltz

The castle is first documented in 1157, when a “Rudolfus de Elze” appears as a witness in a deed of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. It was built to guard the trade route between the Moselle, the Maifeld and the Eifel, and it has remained in the hands of the Eltz family for over 850 years and more than 33 generations. Before 1268 the brothers Elias, Wilhelm and Theoderich divided the castle among their three families, the later lines of Eltz-Kempenich, Eltz-Rübenach and Eltz-Rodendorf. They shared it as a Ganerbenburg: each branch of the family lived in its own house, while the Knights’ Hall and the chapel were used in common. That’s why over 100 rooms of the castle cluster on one small rock.

Eltz Castle was besieged during the Eltz Feud of 1331–1336, when Archbishop Balduin of Trier built the siege castle Trutzeltz opposite and forced the lords of Eltz to surrender in 1336, but it was never destroyed. In the wars of the late 17th century, when many Rhenish castles were blown up, Hans Anton zu Eltz-Üttingen, a senior officer in the French army, had it removed from the list. In 1815 Count Hugo Philipp zu Eltz became sole owner by buying the Rübenach house, and his descendants restored the castle between 1845 and 1888. Today it is privately owned by Count Eltz.

Architecture & setting

Eltz Castle sits on a rock spur above the Elzbach river, which surrounds it on three sides, in the wooded hills between the Eifel and the Moselle river. The houses rise more than seven storeys in places, with eight towers up to 35 metres high, turrets and half-timbering. The building phases run from the Romanesque keep of Platt-Eltz (early 12th century) through the Gothic Rübenach house, begun in 1311, and the late Gothic Rodendorf houses (around 1490–1540) to the Renaissance styles of the Kempenich houses, built mainly between 1604 and 1661.

This mix makes the castle a fairy-tale picture and an authentic medieval document at the same time. For the wider castle landscape, see our guide to castles in Rhineland-Palatinate, or follow the Rhine Romanticism route, which includes a day at Eltz.

FAQ

Is Eltz Castle open to the public?

Yes. In the 2026 season it is open daily from 29 March to 1 November, including public holidays, from 9:30 a.m. The interior is shown on the guided tour included in the ticket.

Is Eltz Castle open in December?

No. The season ends on 1 November and the castle is closed in winter. Check the official website for the next season’s dates before planning a spring visit.

How much are Eltz Castle tickets?

Adults pay €14, students and visitors with disabilities €7, families €34, and children up to six enter free (as of October 2026). Parking (€4) and the shuttle (€2 per journey) are extra and cash only.

Where is Eltz Castle, and is it on the Rhine river?

It lies in the municipality of Wierschem in the Mayen-Koblenz district of Rhineland-Palatinate, in a side valley of the Moselle, not on the Rhine. The nearest Moselle villages are Moselkern and Hatzenport; Cochem and Koblenz are the nearest towns.

Who owns Eltz Castle, and do people still live there?

The castle is privately owned by Count Eltz. It has belonged to the same family for over 850 years, which is why the rooms still hold their original furnishings rather than museum replicas.

Is Eltz Castle open on Sundays?

Yes. During the season the castle opens every day of the week, including Sundays and public holidays. For an overnight stay nearby, Wierschem, Münstermaifeld and the Moselle towns of Treis-Karden and Cochem have hotels and guesthouses.