Ardez und die Burg Steinsberg. Foto/Photo: TES

Ardez and Steinsberg Castle

The region has been a battlefield for centuries. The Counts of Tyrol, the (Austrian and Spanish) Habsburgs, local dynasties, the Bünder alliances and their (French) allies were the main protagonists until the last war, the Bündner Wirren (1618-1639).

The Lords of Frickingen of Überlingen am Bodensee built the Steinberg castle in the eleventh century. The castle was destroyed in the Swabian War (der Schwabische Krieg) of 1499. Only the tower survived; it is the hallmark of the village today.

The village was destroyed by a fire in 1622 but rebuilt soon afterwards. Most houses were built in the seventeenth century.  The village is an open-air monument today.

(Source and further information: www.ardez.ch).