Rolandsbogen, Bad Honnef

Rolandseck Castle in the Rolandswerth district of Remagen was a hilltop castle on the Rhine whose preserved ruins are called Rolandsbogen. In 1040 it was first mentioned as Rulcheseck. The castle was built in 1122 by Archbishop Friedrich I of Cologne together with the Nonnenwerth convent. Possibly a predecessor building existed since 1040.

The ruins of Rolandseck Castle are located below the Rodderberg on a 155.2 m above sea level basalt rock above the Middle Rhine Valley, exactly at its last left Rhine narrows before the gradual expansion into the Lower Rhine Bay, and served together with the almost directly opposite castles Drachenfels and Wolkenburg to secure the southern border of the closed territory of the Archbishopric of Cologne in the 12th century. In the 14th century the old name changed into the present one.

Destroyed in 1475 in the Burgundian War, it was rebuilt and severely damaged by the Swedes in the Thirty Years' War around 1632 and fell into ruin. This collapsed on February 19, 1673 during an earthquake except for one last castle window, the so-called Rolandsbogen.

A Middle High German version of the Roland saga is based on the castle, according to which the knight Roland comes from here and leaves behind a grieving Hildegunde from Drachenfels, who then enters the Nonnenwerth monastery - despite the fact that the Roland figure, as a vassal of Charlemagne, is to be located in the 8th century, a good 300 years before the castle and monastery were built.