Map of Castles open to the public

Rick's Germany guidebook describes several castles that he likes in that region, and which he thinks are enough to fill most people's interest. Here are three on the Rhine and Mosel. On the German Tourist Board site, you will also get quite a few search results for "Rhine Castles."

Rhine Castle Map

Rhine Castles open for public viewing:
Burg Lahneck Lahnstein
Burg Rheinfels (St. Goar)
Schloß Stolzenfels Koblenz-Stolzenfels (The Koblenzer Brewery is nearby.)
Festung Ehrenbreitstein (also a hostel) (Koblenz)
Marksburg (Braubach)
Pfalzgrafenstein (Kaub)
Burg Reichenstein (Trechtingshausen)
Burg Rheinstein north of Bingen

The others on the map are in private hands or are operated as hostels, hotels (Reichenstein is a hotel too) or in ruins or otherwise inaccessible.

A list of all the castles in the area would be VERY long ... The most famous stretch along the middle Rhine has 40 along a short 65 km stretch ... It is easy to get castle overload in less than 5 days ;-)

Here is a good website to start with:
http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de/index.php?id=288&L=3

Even castles that are operated as hostels or hotels are often still accessible to the public. However, not all of them offer tours.

Schönburg in Oberwesel has a hotel and a hostel, but also a nice little museum in the keep that is accessible to the general public. The website is in German but if you contact the manager by email you can get more information in English.
http://www.schoenburg.eu/

I suggest you go check this Wikipedia page, which links you to lists by federal state. Note, though, these lists don't distinguish between castles and palaces, although sometimes the difference is a matter of opinion. You can see from the length of these lists that a map would be rather impractical, particularly for Rheinland-Pfaltz, Hessen and Baden-Würrtemberg. I think Rheinland-Pfaltz actually has the highest castle density in the country, but most of them are little more than piles of rocks deep within the woods (not talking about the well-known castles of the Mosel and Mittelrhein here).

The majority of castles in Germany are open ruins- no admission cost, no opening and closing times, no staffing and generally only a plaque that explains the history of the building (usually only in German, but sometimes in English too.). Ruins run the gamut from merely a few remnants of the foundation, all the way to nearly complete structures that lack only parts of the roof. Some of the better maintained ruins (like the familiar specimens on the Rhine) charge admission. A well preserved, structurally complete castle or a rebuilt Romantic-era castle will almost always charge admission, will function as a hotel/restaurant or remain as a closed private residence (relatively rare).

Between Köln and Munich, in addition to the Rhine, two other regions with a particularly dense concentration of castles are the Bergstraße district between Darmstadt and Heidelberg and the Neckar river valley between Heidelberg and Bad Wimpfen. Along the Bergstraße, the two castles most worth visiting are Burg Frankenstein above the town of Seeheim-Jungenheim, and Schloss Auerbach above the town of the same name, both mostly for the views they offer of the surroundings. The preserved sections of the towns of Heppenehim and Weinheim are also very attractive, although their castles are less interesting. Along the Neckar, of course, there's Heidelberg's famous Schloss, the walled castle town of Dilsberg, Burg Hornberg and about a dozen others you can see from the road. I think all but two are open to the public.

The Odenwald (the mountains you see south of Frankfurt) also has plenty of castles, particularly the excellently preserved Burg Breuberg, but most of the castles here are difficult to find if you don't know the region.

The regions north of Frankfurt, heading both towards Köln via Gießen and towards Kassel is also loaded with castles. One of the best is Schloss Braunfels.

Bavaria has some of the most famous castles in Germany, but the overall density is much lower than its neighboring states (unless you count palaces), particularly in the south of the state. Two worth investigating around Munich, though are Burg Trausnitz above Landshut (but tours are only in German), and Burg zu Burghausen, in the town of the same name. Like most of central and southern Germany, most of the other castles are ruins, many only accessible by a lengthy hike. Northern Bavaria traditionally constituted more of the quarrelling little statelets that tended to result in more castle construction (unlike southern Bavaria, which was relatively unified for centuries), so there's more here than in the south.

The region traditionally referred to as "Mitteldeutschland" (the states of Thüringen, far northern Bavaria, Sachsen, southern Sachsen-Anhalt, and parts of Niedersachsen and Hessen) also feature a particularly large amount of intact castles, most of which are generally not well covered in English-language travel literature. However, this part of Germany really isn't along your route of travel.

In summary... the number of castles in Germany runs in the hundreds, not dozens. You won't find a single resource that gives a good description of anything more than a small portion of them. Keep your eyes open on your drives and be prepared to make unexpected detours.

have a look here as well -http://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/

Thank you all very much for the information. I know we might get a little castle overload but my husband really wanted to visit or at least drive by as many as we can since we will have a car. All the websites in the links work well and I am mapping out a course! I found a few castles that we might even be able to stay the night in. Leaving for Europe in early Sept so if anyone else has any other information please pass it on.

I like to ad Burg Hohenzollern (real big one), Schloss Sigmaringen and Schloss Lichtenstein (not country Liechtenstein) all south of Stuttgart.