Seengen, Aargau
THE LOWDOWN
Hallwyl is the showstopper of the ‘water castle’ category — built on two artificial islands in the middle of the River Aabach, surrounded by proper moats, near the top of Lake Hallwil. It goes back to the late 12th century, first mentioned in 1256, and for over 800 years it was the family seat of the Lords of Hallwyl.
ROUND THE CASTLE
It started life as a single defensive tower with a dry moat, then got seriously beefed up in the early 1300s when the dry moat became a real one and a whole second island was added, complete with a chapel and bakehouse. Then in 1415, during the Swiss Confederation’s conquest of Aargau, Bernese troops burned the whole thing to the ground — but the family just rebuilt it, bigger and better, and kept adding artillery towers as gunpowder weapons became the new normal. It stayed in the Hallwyl family right up until the 20th century, when Wilhelmina von Hallwyl set up a foundation in 1925 to open it to the public, and the Canton of Aargau took formal ownership in 1994.
THE LITTLE TITBIT
Visitors say you can still hear ‘eerie lamentations’ drifting out of the old reading tower, which used to double as a dungeon for prisoners. So next time you’re wandering a moated island fortress and hear some ghostly moaning, that’s apparently just the acoustics doing their thing. Sure it is.
