Moated Baroque Castle Schloss Nordkirchen 

Schloss Nordkirchen is called the "Versailles of Westphalia." The label is not just local braggadocio. Versailles was what Prince- Bishop Count Friedrich Christian von Plettenberg envisioned as a model when, in 1694, he bought the original moated castle of Nordkirchen from a local nobleman and commissioned architect Gottfried Pictorius to turn that modest property into a grand summer residence, replete with landscaped park and canals for pleasure boats.

Money, he said, should be no obstacle, so Pictorious spent what was then a king's ransom--240,000 thalers--to create a vast palace in the style of French chateaus. Neither the bishop nor his builder lived to see completion of the project, and it was Plettenberg's nephew Ferdinand who retained Johann Conrad Schlaun to finish the job.

It is one of Germany's largest, most lavishly appointed palaces: a complex of eight huge wings extending from a central tract in a strikingly harmonious juxtaposition of maroon-colored brick with carved sandstone embellishments. The 430-acre park surrounding the lake and canals is dotted with manicured lawns and flowerbeds, statues of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses, cupids, satyrs, and figures of hunting dogs and charging wild boars. Chestnut trees, 200 years old, line the lanes and paths.

another point of view from a good photographer: www.flickr.com/photos/destinatio/328102260/