Meersburg, Germany: Lake Constance wine town and the country's oldest inhabited castle

Terraced vineyards tumble down to the water, ferries glide toward the far shore, and two castles - one stout and medieval, one pink and baroque - watch over the rooftops: this is Meersburg, on the northern shore of Lake Constance (the Bodensee) in the far south of Baden-Württemberg. A small town of around 6,000 residents, it stands beside Friedrichshafen and faces the city of Konstanz across the lake; Stuttgart, the state capital, lies roughly 190 kilometres to the north and the Swiss city of Zürich about 75 kilometres to the south-west.

The Altes Schloss, or Burg Meersburg, is widely regarded as the oldest inhabited castle in Germany. Tradition traces its first tower to the Merovingian king Dagobert I around AD 630, though the surviving fabric dates mainly from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. More than thirty furnished rooms - armoury, knights' hall, kitchen and dungeon - are open to visitors, and the castle has remained in private hands since 1838.

Prince-bishops and a poet

From the thirteenth century the old castle served as a seat of the prince-bishops of Konstanz. When they wanted something grander, they built the Neues Schloss alongside in the eighteenth century, a baroque palace whose frescoed ballroom and chapel now hold museums. In her final years the celebrated German poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff lived in the old castle, where her study is preserved; her portrait later appeared on the twenty-mark banknote.

On the water and among the vines

Wine has been pressed on these slopes for more than eight centuries, and the steep vineyards still yield the town's characteristic wines. Regular ferries link Meersburg with Konstanz and the flower island of Mainau, a relaxed base for the German shore of the lake, with the Alps rising beyond the southern horizon.