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Unusual and Spectacular Castles
Castles That Will Inspire and Haunt You
Arguably born the day that villagers -- and the people who
profited off them -- decided that wood wasn’t strong enough to keep them
safe, castles quickly became more than just edifices dedicated to
security. Instead of repelling borders, real or imaginary, castles became
THE status symbol of status symbols. Monuments to bravado, they were
stone and mortal proclamations to the age-old idea that "mine is
bigger than yours."
Pierrefonds -
picture-postcard example of a castle
If you want an picture-postcard example of a castle, you don’t
have to go anywhere but the Château de Pierrefonds in France. Although it
may have started out as a structure designed to keep some folks out and
others safely in, it was later partially sugar frosted by none other than
Napoleon the 3rd, who was shooting for a true nobility status symbol: a
iced cake that no one but the very rich and very privileged could eat.
(image credit: Frédéric Lavaux)
Pierrefonds is still a beautiful place, even if its fortifications
were overly gilded –- or maybe because of it. It’s no wonder it's used to
this day when central casting gets a call for a classic castle.
(photos by Ralph Gant and Benoit Stordeur, see more)
When fairy tale jumps from a landscape and hits you between the
eyes
If you want a real Disney, fairy-tale, and totally insane castle,
you have to visit the residence of one totally insane German king, namely
Ludwig II of Bavaria. Look up gaudy in the dictionary and there’s a
picture of his castle: Neuschwanstein ("The New Swan Rock").
Neuschwanstein Castle, gracing ten million over-saturated
postcards and jigsaw puzzles, (image credits unknown)
Glitzed and filigreed, Neuschwanstein is like Ludwig’s twisted brain
turned inside out and realized in stone and brick. It is also sublime and
splendid, over-the-top and strangely fragile - all at the same time. We
are going to devote a special article to it, truly a place not of this
world.
photos by Avi Abrams
Monstrous chandelier? Check. Room made to look like a cavern? It’s
there. Entire rooms dedicated to Wagner (with whom Ludwig was obsessed)?
Absolutely. It’s all there, larger and more ornate than any life …
unless, of course, you were the King of Bavaria.
photos by Avi Abrams
The Coral Castle - Nobody knows how it was built
One of my favorite castles, though, wasn’t the dream of a king
realized in stone and mortar. Spurned at the altar back in his native
Latvia, Edward Leedskalnin took his disappointment, and a case of
tuberculosis, to Florida in 1923. There, in the land of oranges and
sunshine, Leedskalnin began to build his very own castle, one he worked
on until his death in 1951 (more info)
(image credit: sarahmizoo)
(images credit: Jim)
It’s still there and definitely worth seeing. It might not have
the polish of Pierrefonds or the glimmer of Neuschwanstein, but Rock Gate
Park, as he called it, is still a striking sight: monstrous slabs of
coral skillfully balanced and beautifully positioned, all of them
assembled without reinforcement or mortar. He spent over 28 years
building the Coral Castle, refusing to allow anyone to view while he
worked.
(The Throne Room, supposed to depict the Moon and the
planets - photo by Claudia Domenig)
Leedskalnin’s construction genius is legendary. No one quite
understands how he built his castle and then moved it ten miles away in
1936. Some people think he used a kind of perpetual motion machine or
mystical methods to move his several-ton blocks. Whatever the means, his
Coral Castle, is still a magnificent achievement -– the sublime result of
his own two hands, his incredible inventiveness, and a tragically broken
heart.
Portmeirion: a surreal village in Gwynedd, Wales
Stepping away from literal castles, but staying within the theme
of very special men and the homes they created, one of the most beautiful
is one you might not know the name of but one you’d recognize
immediately. All I need to write is "You are Number 6."
(image credit: Richard Hagen)
Located in Wales, Portmeirion was created by Sir Clough
Williams-Ellis in 1925 (though some of it wasn’t finished until 1975).
Although Sir Williams-Ellis wasn’t a king, he was obviously knighted, and
certainly had help with his remarkable residence. Portmeirion deserves to
stand with Ludwig’s vision of Germanic paradise and Leedskalnin’s
eccentric coral castle because of its unique, and spectacularly
beautiful, vision.
(image credit: Gavin D. J. Harper)
Williams-Ellis was so dedicated to preserving the tranquil
elegance of Portmeirion that the filming location of Patrick McGoohan’s
"The Prisoner" wasn’t revealed until the final episode of the
series. Even with the careful hiding of the village’s identity, anyone
who knew anything about architecture would have recognized the
Williams-Ellis’s pearl-white cottages and the legendary green dome where,
in "The Prisoner", the village’s rotating Number 2s had their
office.
(image credit: Matt Buck)
Portmeirion is truly a beautiful place and completely unspoiled by
its television appearance. It remains today just as Williams-Ellis
intended it to be: a tranquil village with a tasteful dusting of
nostalgia.
The Postman's Palace - another single-handedly built castle
Ferdinand Cheval has imagined his "Ideal Palace" and
simply went on to built it - after all, why not? He spent 33 years with
this project (located in the village of Hauterives in the picturesque
Drôme region of Southern France) - but the results are nothing less than
stunning:
(photos by Emmanuel Georges, Eric Devlies, Francerama)
Initially considered "the village idiot", he was
suddenly hailed as a genius and a celebrity in France, upon completion of
this intricate affair. But is it the "Ideal Palace"? Everyone
seems to have a different opinion. More info and images are on this page.
Whether it's the gussied-up fortresses like Pierrefonds, the
gilded dreams of a mad king like Neuschwanstein, the eccentric genius of
Leedskalnin and his Coral Castle, or the whimsical grace of
Williams-Ellis’s Portmeirion and Ferdinand Cheval's Palace, a man’s home
can really be his castle.
More Fantastic Castles, to Visit and to Think About (Wistfully)
Eltz Castle, Germany: another fairy-tale location, this time
completely surrounded (and in certain degree concealed) by the forest:
(image credit: frizztext, see more)
Germany (just like Switzerland and Austria) has many enchanting
castles, big and small -
Castle-like mansion in Arnsberg and a large Buerresheim
Castle, photos by frizztext
The stretch of Rhein between Cologne and Mainz has the especially
high concentration of great fortresses, presiding over the quaint
riverside villages:
This is a great site listing all the castles
Egeskov Castle, Denmark:
(image credit: Malene Thyssen)
Eastern Europe abounds in awesome castles. This is for example,
Castle in Moszna, Poland:
Check out the sinister door handle from the Dracula's Bran Castle
on the bottom right. Towers emerging from the mist in the photo below:
this is Bragança, a walled town in northern Portugal. Very evocative
image on the bottom left is Le Chateau de Nyon in Nyon, Switzerland:
(originals unknown)
The Chittorgarh Fort in India. This pool was often the only source
of water during the numerous sieges by Mughal Emperors:
(image via)
Nestled in High Places:
The way to the Guaita Fortress in San Marino (more info) -
Try not to think of "Myst" and "Riven" while
looking at the above picture... Here is the high cliff on which the
fortress stands:
(image credit: Ricardo André Frantz)
Overlooking the Echaz Valley and the storybook village below,
often shrouded in fog, Lichtenstein Castle comes close to being the
perfect castle in Europe.
(image credit: Andreas Tille)
The Abandoned Castle in Rural Italy
Oh yes, still unclaimed by some luxury developer, nor touched by
multi-million renovation... hiding in a valley in a tangled forest:
Castello di Zena:
(here is a Google Earth location, but don't set your hopes too
high - this is a guarded private property)
(image credit: cyberbiscottato)
A mystery. Falling to pieces. Splendor in the grass.
A View That Launched 10,000 Epic Fantasy Books
Another feature of fortified high places is the splendid view they
often afford. We'd like to open up a sort of competition: The Best View
From a Castle, but the winner already easily comes to mind - and it's the
Neuschwanstein's Castle, again. The panorama of the towering Alps and a
nestled gem of the lake, Alpsee, is enough to make you sigh and close
your eyes... dreaming.
Photo by Avi Abrams
The ultimate castle, that was ever designed to grace the face of
the Earth
King Ludwig, again. The planned Falkenstein - truly THE Lost
Castle. The one that he was all set to build - but for the financial (and
mental) meltdown he suffered.
Christian Jank's first High Gothic design for Falkenstein,
1883.
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