No visit to Regensburg is complete without a visit to the Schloss Thurn und Taxis, a former Benedictine abbey acquired by the Thurn and Taxis family in 1812 as their private castle.

While still the family’s ancestral home, three main section are open to the public. The palace, with its magnificent 19th-century furnishings, paints a vivid picture of court life in the 19th century.

The palace also houses the Thurn and Taxis Museum, a branch of the National Museum of Bavaria, with an extensive collection of jewelry, watches, porcelain place settings, dueling pistols and other family treasures.

The cloisters show quite vividly the evolution of Gothic style during the Middle Ages. Each abbot built a set of arches through his tenure, making it easy to determine the date range for each series.

Finally, the royal stables (Marstallmuseum) display the family’s coaches and carriages, much of them used in the family business: a monopoly on private and official mail throughout Western Europe from the early 16th century to 1867.