Nights with the knights

Press, 5 December 1989, Page 35

Nights with the knights

Inheriting a castle or a stately home in West Germany can be an expensive business.

Maintenance costs can be crippling, even if the old walls are fit to live in.

Among the 16,000 stately homes and ruined castles in the country, Burg Satzvey, 40 kilometres south of Bonn, has

become a modern success story. There, Count and Countess Beissel von Gymnich offer paying guests yearround hospitality of a special kind. Every summer, for a fortnight, about 400 actors become knights on horseback, and knightly retainers, for a jousting tournament.

Similar exhibitions can be mounted, on demand, at other times. Guests are transported back to the Middle Ages.

Up to 800 guests can sit down in the vast courtly marquee at a version of King Arthur’s Round table while the fighting and Medieval frolics go on around them.

Time travel does not come cheap. It costs between $lOO and $6OO per person per day, to stay at Burg Satzevy.

The price depends on the festive fare, on whether a full jousting tournament is laid on, and on whether a designer ghost is to appear at midnight.