On the four Advent weekends of 2018, the "Unique Christmas Season" had just over 40,000 visitors. "The weather wasn’t the best. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win", said Joachim Odenthal, Managing Director of Schloss Drachenburg GmbH. Only the third Advent weekend was not rainy. "Still, we are satisfied with the number of visitors," says Odenthal. It was more important that the guests had been happy. "We have consistently received a good response".

Beginning on January 1, 2019 at noon, the castle will be open for visitors again. The building, which is owned by the NRW foundation, will be open nearly all year round for the first time in 2019. One exception is the week before the Christmas market when set-up is taking place.

A second exception is during the filming of two major television productions, which have already proved a huge boost to the popularity and name recognition of the castle in the past year. "We are in final negotiations with the Babylon Berlin production company," reports Odenthal. At the end of February/beginning of March, scenes from the new season of the successful series are to be shot in Königswinter.

The castle, which was built by Baron von Sarter at the end of the 19th century, was transformed into the residence of the steel manufacturer Alfred Nyssen for a part of “Babylon Berlin”. The scenes were shot in November of 2016. If the film production company agrees, the castle could become an attraction for those interested in seeing a television set on location. "We asked whether we could do guided tours of the set on a weekend," says Odenthal. Until now, no answer had been received. But the interest in such a tour would probably be enormous.

The second television production using the castle as a backdrop is an episode of the ZDF television second-hand treasures show "Bares für Rares". It will be shot at the end of September. There will be some other smaller productions as well.

(Orig. text: Hansjürgen Melzer, Translation: Carol Kloeppel)