Vianden

Vianden lies on the Our beneath the castle of its counts, built between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries on an older fortified site. Count Philip II granted the town a charter in 1308. Its craftsmen included tanners, weavers, barrelmakers and goldsmiths, who organized guilds in 1490. The Gothic church of the Trinitarians recalls Count Henry I's gratitude for their help in freeing his father from captivity during a crusade.

The castle continued to be enlarged, but the departure of its lords to the Netherlands, fire and an earthquake contributed to its decline. In 1820 King William I of the Netherlands sold it to a local merchant, who sold its contents and masonry piece by piece. The former residence of the counts became a ruin above the river.