Habsburg village, Aargau
THE LOWDOWN
Okay, THIS is the big one, historically speaking. This unassuming little hilltop fort, built around 1020 by Count Radbot and his brother-in-law Werner, Bishop of Strasbourg, is the literal birthplace of the House of Habsburg — the family that went on to run half of Europe for the best part of 900 years.
ROUND THE CASTLE
The story goes that Radbot named the place ‘Habichtsburg’ — Hawk’s Castle — after spotting a hawk sitting on the walls one day, which somehow got shortened over time to Habsburg. His grandson Otto II was the first to actually take the family name from the castle, and from there it just snowballed: by 1273, Radbot’s seventh-generation descendant Rudolf I got himself elected King of the Romans, and the family packed up and relocated their power base to Vienna, where they stayed in charge, one way or another, all the way until 1918. Meanwhile the original castle back here in little old Aargau just… quietly stopped being important. It changed hands repeatedly until the Canton of Aargau took it over in 1804, and today it houses offices, a tiny museum and a restaurant.
THE LITTLE TITBIT
So here’s the gossip that actually matters: pretty much every Habsburg emperor, king and archduke you’ve ever heard of — right through to the last Austro-Hungarian emperor in 1918 — can trace their whole family tree back to this one modest stone tower on a hill in Aargau. Imagine going to the family reunion for THAT lot.
