Castle Hunt No. 1 - Clingendael

Valley in the dunes

This fall we began our castle hunt; an extraordinary search for an appropriate castle accompanied by a marvellous bottle of wine and lots of inspiration. We divided the hunt in three sections to be able to take you with us on our journey to some of the magical places the Dutch heritage has to offer.

In the midst of fall we stumbled upon our first castle. A gorgeous mansion located in Wassenaar. Wassenaar is known for the most exquisite châteaux in the Netherlands, and trust me nothing makes it less true. As soon as we entered the front gates of the property we were amazed by the imposant mansion. At that point we had not yet discovered the magnificent royal gardens hidden out of the eye of the public. The scenery was even more magical than we hoped it would be.

Making sure we were dressed appropriately for the viewing, we brought a fine bottle of deep red wine to elicit the feeling of dreaming away by the magical ambience, fading away in inspiration even more.

As we walk through the royal gardens of this magnificent place we were amazed by the atmosphere of luxury & royalty. There is definitely a story behind it, a story we love to visualise.

The history of this marvellous residence goes all the way back to 1591. Clingendael was last inhabited by baroness Marguérite Mary. Mary was the youngest daughter of a well known baron and stayed unmarried for her entire life. When the baron passed away on a ship in the Mediterranean Mary decided to redesign the French Baroque gardens of ‘Huys Clingendael’ and hired an architect to design royal & Japanese gardens on her estate.

We dreamt away imagining the life of Mary, filled with luxury and memories. During our visit we decided to open up the bottle of wine and enjoy the savour whilst conceptualising the traditional & elegant way of life from the late 16th century.

The wine we brought with us was one of the great wines from Languedoc. This bottle of merlot from Luc Pirlet is crafted from grapes grown in vineyards lying between Narbonne and Limoux on the road to the Pyrénées mountains. As we adore a balanced wine, it should have its basic flavour components in good proportion. The sense of texture and flavour that lingers in the mouth should amaze your senses. And as our senses were already full of inspiration by the beautiful surroundings the wine topped it off even more.

As we are still reminiscing this wonderful afternoon in the middle of Fall, we’re getting ready to take you with us to Castle No. 2 to take you further on this note worthy journey.

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