Sorry for derailing this thread a bit now but my "local-provincial patriotism" was just awakened by your comment!
Yes, there are sometimes "busloads" full of tourists visiting this castle for some hours and there is also a small restaurant inside, but as I said, this castle is even today in a relatively remote area of Germany and there are not so many tourists coming there - and this could be good for nature.
There are several ruins of castles in this region of the Palatinate Forest (= "Pfälzerwald") and only two of them were relatively well restored:
Berwartstein and much more famous: The "Trifels Castle", which even once was the medieval "state prison" for "VIPs = Very Important Prisoners" of the German Emperors, for example "
Richard the Lionheart, King of England" was REALLY imprisoned HERE from 31 March to 19 April 1193 :
"Tri-Fels Castle" must have been one of the most impressive castle complexes of the Middle Ages until 1220 because there must have been 3 similar castles on 3 hills right behind each other with different duties for the emperors of the medieval "Hohenstaufen" family: One the representative Emperor's castle, one the prison and one the mint for the imperial coins of gold and silver, which was becoming even more important after the ransom money for King Richard the Lionheart arrived here. There are still rumours that there were hidden connection corridors between the three castles with hidden treasures in them but no one ever found them - as far as the public knows ...
In principle, Germany is a very densely populated country but by German standards, this "Pfälzerwald" is almost an European "jungle" because this is still the largest interrelated forest on both sides of the border to France, even bigger than the biggest Bavarian forest as you can see in these pictures:
View attachment 1122498 ... and zoomed in ...
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The villages around the castles in this region are also very small by German standards as you can see by a look from the castle's tower:
View attachment 1122499 It was wonderful for me as a child to play in a garden next to these forests because I saw animals there of which most Germans think today that they do not exist any more in Germany but in these German "Northern almost-rain-forests", (just look at this tree's roots in front of the castle! : ) ...
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... they really do and I still have seen a few years ago these ones which seem for most German children today to be animals from a fairy-tale, but they still do really exist and they are much bigger than you would expect them to be when you have never seen them before alive:
View attachment 1122501 View attachment 1122502 View attachment 1122503