Schönecken Castle is a ruined hill above the village of Schönecken in the Nims valley in the West Eifel mountains. The castle stands on the lowest hill ridge in the middle of a valley bowl. The site is guarded on all sides by higher hills. The castle was built around 1230.
The castle occupies a 120-metre-long rectangular site with an enceinte and three projecting towers. In the east the site is guarded by a wide neck ditch. The three towers stand on the south side, two of them being still three storeys high. The two round towers probably date to the 13th or 14th century, the central, rectangular one is more recent. All three towers and their curtain walls have been part of a multi-storey residential building since no later than the 16th century, as depicted in an 18th-century painting.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.