The small village of Winterstein is located in the Inselsberg region and was once the ancestral seat of the widely ramified Thuringian noble von Wangenheim family. They built a castle in the middle of the village around 1307, which was damaged during the Thirty Years' War and then left to decay.

What remains is an extremely idyllic medieval castle district with ruined towers, sections of wall with the remains of Gothic pointed arches and the legendary dog grave. The castle grounds also include the half-timbered bailiwick as well as the manor house and barn. The entire complex is surrounded by a small, well-kept castle park.

This is where the dog is buried

And here he rests. Stuczel, the beloved four-legged friend of one of the von Wangenheims. Legend has it that she entrusted her amorous dispatches to a gentleman in Gotha (it could also have been one in Schweina) to him alone. When Stuczel died on March 19, 1630, his mistress wanted him to be buried in the cemetery. Not only for the priest this was the purest blasphemy. So she had a tomb erected for him near the castle, on which Stuczel's date of death and her thanksgiving can still be read today.