In Germany (where the term eagle’s nest has closer links with the Second World War than the Middle Ages) castles also decorated the landscape. The golden age of castle building here, as elsewhere, was in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when many magnificent fortresses were erected, including at Heidelberg and Eltz, and Hohenstaufen Castle, perched on a small mountain above Göppingen in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg and home to the imperial family of Frederick II Hohenstaufen.
