Photo : Gzen92 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château du Girsberg
The château du Girsberg, formerly called Petit-Ribeaupierre, is one of the three castles that overlook Ribeauvillé, in the Haut-Rhin, at about 530 metres' altitude. The other two are Saint-Ulrich and Haut-Ribeaupierre.
The lords of Ribeaupierre had it built in the first half of the thirteenth century; it was then called "Stein", that is the rock. A fire caused by lightning in 1288 led to its reconstruction. In 1304, it was given as a fief to the knights of Girsberg, who left it their name. In 1422, a dispute ended with the death of a noble Girsberg during an attack; the Ribeaupierre took back the castle. The line died out in the fifteenth century and the castle was abandoned in the seventeenth.
The pentagonal keep, of stone, granite and sandstone, dates from the thirteenth century; the lodging and the lower court go back to the fourteenth century. A niche engraved with a tau was discovered in 1927. The ruins have been protected since 1841 and 1930.
