Castle Hunting: The Ones That Got Away

We visited, by my informal calculations, about seventy-five or eighty castles on the trip, and all of them were memorable in some way.  We explored the dungeons by lantern-light at snowy Pils Cēsis, in Latvia, and dodged stray dogs at Soroca, Moldova.  There were floating castles at Kizkalesi and Palamidi, recent ruins in the Bosnian hills (Ostrožac), serene Romanian wonders and brash Monagasque palaces.  Most Impressive?  Maybe Malbork Castle, the headquarters of the Teutonic Order (did you know they were based in Poland?). Maybe Slovakia's Spišský Hrad, even in ruin. Megalomania? Bojnice, the 19th century marriage proposal that didn't work.

There were rebuilds (Macedonia's Zamokot Samuil, Belarus's Mirsky Zamak), wonders of engineering (Kamyanets Podilsky), seats of kings (Olite) and brooding, heavyset masterpieces (Serbia's last-stand Danube hulk, Smederevo).

We visited castles at the end of the earth, like the Towers of Svaneti, and tourist-trap museums like Warwick - but no matter where we were, these big piles of old stones always felt exotic.  To an American, castles are Europe.

Inevitably, we couldn't post about all of the forts and towers we poked around, and a lot of worthwhile places got left out of the blog.  Here, then, are some of the best Castle Hunting leftovers from our trip.

(Here's a link to all of the posts we did put up)

It had snowed when we visited Kilitbahir castle, but the day was mild and the air smelled of saltwater and grilling sardines.  The Gallipoli peninsula could lay a legitimate claim to the title "bloodiest place on earth."  What is today a peaceful bit of Turkish coast, dotted with fish restaurants and maritime villages, was long at the tumultuous fissure between Europe and Asia, where Byzantines and Ottomans once clashed and WWI saw some of its fiercest battles.

The name "Kilitbahir" means "lock of the sea."  Built to guard the narrowest point between continental coasts, and to control the entrance to the Sea of Marmara (and the Black Sea beyond, and the Sea of Azov beyond that), it's a sun-baked beauty.  There are gorgeous, spiral brick accents and cannon-ready, round towers.

It was also hemmed-in by ugly buildings, which is one of the more frustrating obstacles to fort photography.  Aside from a few washed out pictures from the sea-facing side, this was the only good picture.  Another memory I have of the place: walking along the snowy walls was pretty terrifying - Turkey's not as litigious a country as the United States is, and they didn't seem to care if you fell off the ramparts. (Actually, no worthwhile castle has guardrails - this isn't just a Turkish thing.)

Albanians will tell you that Gjirokastër was named after Princess Argjiro, a lovely young mother who jumped off the castle tower with her baby instead of surrendering to the Ottomans.  Greeks (and most historians) will tell you that the fortress and city got their name from the ancient Greek word argyrokastron, which means "silver castle."  Doesn't matter who you listen to, Gjirokastër is one of the coolest old cities in the Balkans.

Rebecca put up a post about the museum in the castle, and another about the town and the writer Ismail Kadare.  We had both just read "Chronicle in Stone," which takes place in town, and were excited to look for old landmarks.  We ate frogs legs in a tree-filled courtyard and byrek from a secret, cellar bakery.  The castle was full of communist bric-a-brac, but still managed to feel pretty medieval.

In Novogrudok, Belarus, we stayed in a little guesthouse run by nuns.  They'd never taken in Americans before, and were wary of us. The town was quieted by a deep snowfall. At the local kafeynya, everyone started drinking vodka at eight in the morning.
We walked up to the "castle" but found only this bit of brickwork.
At some point in the 13th century, Navahrudak (as it's called by non-Russian speakers) was the capital castle of the Duchy of Lithuania.  It was a major fortification by the 17th century, with seven towers.  Sadly, the Great Northern War was unkind to the place, and what's left is more monument than citadel.
Belarus has been so often fought over that not much remains from before the 1940's.  Their one real "castle" is a frosted-cake reconstruction in the town of Mir.

Out on Saaremaa Island, in the midst of an Estonian winter, we ate cod liver mashed with onions and visited craters and painted bus-stop/post-offices.  We also made a stop at the square-jawed Kuressaare castle, which sits on a fortified islet overlooking the Gulf of Riga.
There's a story associated with the fort that, at some murky point in its history, there were lions kept in a narrow pit inside the walls.  While I believe in lions, and I've seen the pit, I don't know if I believe that there really were fifteenth century lions in this particular Estonian pit - an alternate myth, perpetrated by some, is that the fearsome beasts were really wolves.  No matter, there's a surprising (as in, it made us jump) audio blast of roaring lions that's been rigged up to play as you pass by the "lions den," which looks suspiciously like a sewage drain.
It was cold, grey and unbeautiful on that December day, and we got only a few worthwhile snaps.  That early on in the trip, I wasn't very good at taking pictures of things that weren't perfectly lit.

Narikala fortress is a ruined crumble of bricks and soft stone, high up above the dusty sprawl of Tbilisi.  There's not much left to see, but the feeling of the place is wonderful.  Georgia already feels far away from the rest of the world, and eighth-century Georgia (when the castle really took shape) seems like a fragment from Scheherazade.
It was chilly in the January breeze.  Below us, in the town, generators and car horns coughed and spluttered.  The walk up to the castle passed a pretty little painted church.  Little prayer flags or remembrance tokens had been tied amongst the brush - some made of cloth, others just brightly-colored plastic bags.
Later, in the middle of the Caucasus, we saw some even more interesting Georgian fortresses.

Pazin, Croatia, is best known for its chasm - the funny sounding "Pazin Chasm" - which Jules Verne wrote a story about.  Perched beside the chasm is a very Adriatic looking castle, with a tiled roof and a jaunty little clock tower.  From the street side, it looks like a Baroque post office.  From across the abyss, it looks like an abandoned mill or a prison.
Grad Pazin was closed when we visited, and the town was in the middle of the hot, dry Istrian peninsula - we didn't linger too long before hurrying back to the coast.

Castle hunting was an obsession, but it was also one of the most popular parts of the blog, and we were chasing content as much as fun experiences.  Sometimes, the search brought us to places we'd never have found otherwise.  Sometimes, it meant a frustrating, hot afternoon.  The Bulgarian town of Veliko Tarnovo was much more interesting than the lame, reconstructed fortress of Tsarevets we had come looking for.
Castles bring visitors - or, at least, town officials hope that they'll bring visitors.  Tsarevets, like too many other ruins, was "rebuilt and restored."  This means a medieval-looking stone thing was built with cranes and tractors and outfitted with bathrooms, ticket counters and souvenir stands.  Another name for this kind of thing is "theme park."
In it's defense, Tsaravets was one of the largest and most important fortresses of the early castle age, though almost nothing of the original is still around.  In Bulgaria's defense, we visited two other, much cooler fortresses in the country: Baba Vida, at a broad part of the Danube, and the incomparable, indescribable Belogradchik.

Tallinn is one of Europe's overlooked gems.  Estonia isn't a big place - or a very bright place in the middle of the northern winter - but its capital is cosmopolitan, cool and beautifully medieval.  It was around Christmastime when we slipped and skidded our way through the icy, cobbled streets. There were holiday markets and little mitten stores, crowded beerhalls and friendly locals.
The old town is entirely ringed by an impressive, many-turreted wall.  It's one of the last surviving, well-preserved town walls in northern Europe, and it looked especially good bedecked in festival lights.  We were coming to the end of our first block of the trip, and were probably too worn out to put up a good post.

Away from the sweeping coast, the wine country and the glitz of Lisbon, Portugal's Alentejo backcountry is dry, hardscrabble and beautiful.  Red-trunked cork trees shade skinny cattle and goats.  There are bull-rings and whitewashed towns.

Portugal has a long string of castles along its eastern border.  We did a post about the pretty, tiled Castelo de Marvão, but neglected nearby Castelo de Vide.  It was a little grubby, with trash in the corners and some half-hearted graffiti inside.  But, when the Portuguese sun hit the walls, it attained a fiery glow.

There was work being done on Sümeg castle when we visited.  Battered Unimog trucks rumbled up the steep castle road and scaffolding was set up in the courtyard.  It was overcast and hot.  We came upon the town while driving through the Hungarian Puszta, in the last days before we headed south for Croatia and the sea.
Sümeg was built quickly as central Europe was being swarmed by the Mongol horde. European castles in 1440 - especially this close to the Ottomans - were already being built with gunpowder in mind. Sümeg, though, was constructed in an older, squarer style.  Apparently, it was just horsemen the Hungarians feared, not cannon fire.

Valletta is one of those fortified cities that - like Luxembourg City - should really be more famous. It has some of the most extensive and incredible sea-walls I've ever seen, and countless castles and towers built into the defenses.  All of it is done up in a Mediterranean style using beautiful yellow limestone.
Malta is full of quirks, and it barely surprised us to find the "largest cannon in the world" among Valletta's defenses.  We put up a post about Victoria Citadella, on Gozo, but never did a proper write up on the capital.

Our 10 Most Popular Posts

Here's the travel blogging catch-22.  Most people are looking for information about places they plan to visit.  So, millions of people search for things about Tuscany, Paris or Amsterdam's canals.  The most amazing place on earth won't receive much traffic if nobody knows about it.  The problem is, the more popular a place is, the more bloggers there are writing about it.  The chance that someone reads your post about the Acropolis? Slim.

Predicting which of our 700 (plus) posts would get read was almost impossible.  Some of the best things we wrote didn't even get read by our own parents.  Some of our silliest or worst-written bits have became enormously (and embarrassingly) popular.

Our 10 most popular posts (based on Google analytics data and Blogger.com traffic reports) are a mixed bag.  Some are good (number one, thankfully), some began their online life as throwaways (see number nine), some are just weird (number five).  Only one of these posts was specifically designed to attract traffic (number two).

10. Cihangir

Sometimes we just hit upon something. Cihangir is a hip, young Istanbul neighborhood.  It reminded us of a Turkish Williamsburg and confirmed our belief that renting an apartment is the best way to see a city.  The best neighborhoods are often the best because they don't have any hotels.  Don't get us wrong, the center of Istanbul is as gobsmacking is you'd expect and we never tired of tooling around in search of balik ekmek or The Mussel Man (who we wind up finding in Cihangir anyway).  But the best cities are great because of their ever-changing qualities, their momentum and the neighborhoods defined by the young people there at a given time. 

9. Not Taking Pictures of The Sistine Chapel

As bloggers, we found ourselves in a jam.  Here we were in Vatican City, two whole weeks of posting about a very, very small microstate and the pièce de résistance was off limits.  No photos in the Sistine Chapel.  Seriously?  If this were a rule decreed by the pope, the security guards would probably have worked a little harder - or at all - to enforce it.  As it turns out, a Japanese TV company owns the exclusive rights to some of the art world's most famous images because they funded its restoration. (This is after NBC turned down the deal.  Probably because they were too busy fine-tuning  Joey, the Friends spin-off).  Anyway, the whole thing was ridiculous, made only more so by the fact that everyone. was. taking. pictures.  So, we decided to half break the rules and snap some shots, too.  Just not of the ceiling.  We're sure this gets traffic because people are searching to see if photos are allowed in the Sistine Chapel.  Not that finding out is going to stop them.  

8. Georgian Food
We can vouch for the fact that it is very difficult to search for anything about Georgia, in English, without being directed to the state instead of the country.  Using the word "Georgian" helps matters a lot.  This one makes us happy because Georgian food really did feel like a revelation.  The textures and flavors were consistently surprising and delicious.  Pomegranate seeds, crushed walnuts, cilantro,  the best bread of our lives.  And then there were khinkali, the soup dumpling like concoctions pictured above.  In the tiny town of Mestia, at the time the most remote place we'd been, the only restaurant in town basically only served khinkali   We discovered, quickly, that they are so delicious you don't need anything more.

7. The Bright Spots

Amazingly, this is only our second most-popular Albanian post (see below!)  

Sometimes we know exactly why people are reading a specific post.  After a TED Blog writer used our photos of Tirana's painted buildings we got a sudden surge of visitors.

The story of Edi Rama (painter turned Minister of Culture turned mayor) and his brilliant idea to transform ugly communist-era cement blocks into bold, bright works of art is a great one.  It's no wonder it's garnered some attention.  We're just happy that our own piece focuses more on the story of the city today and of Malvin, a young man who served us dinner one night and was showing us around the next.  Maybe he'll stumble upon the post himself and shoot us an email.  We wonder if he ever made it to that bioengineering school in Canada.

6. Castle Hunting: Trakai Castle
Island castles are a little bit of a trend (see number 4).
We remember this castle most for the speeding ticket we got nearby.  Lithuanian police take road safety very seriously.  For the record, if you should ever find yourself stopped by an officer in Lithuania, be prepared to pay your fine in cash on the spot.  If you don't have the money, he/she will drive you to the nearest bank to withdraw the amount.  Don't be scared.  This is absolutely normal.  Well, you can still be scared.  As we were.

5. Sleeping In Soviet Style
This little Belarusian piece has always baffled us.  For almost a year it was our number two most-viewed post, second only to this, about Belarusian tractors (which now ranks about 12th).  It would make sense if people were only landing here while looking for lodging in Belarus - which is hard to find - but that didn't seem to be the case.  Inexplicably, thousands of people showed up after searching for "armenian elevator buttons."  The internet is a weird, weird place.
(Thanks to one visitor, we learned that what we thought was a very cool smoke detector was actually an even cooler single-channel radio from the Soviet age).

4. Castle Hunting: Kizkalesi Castles

We were never even supposed to be there in Kizkalesi, but we were finding it a little difficult to catch a boat to northern Cyprus, and we needed a place to stay.  For a Turkish seaside town, it's a little drab.  People visit for the "floating" castle (and visit our blog for pictures of it).  We stayed in an empty hotel, run by a very nice Kurdish man who took us to the nearby Caves of Heaven and Hell and invited us to watch a televised NBA game with him in the evening. 

3. Lithuanian Food
For a long time, Lithuanian Food was the most viewed post on the blog.  It features grainy, unappealing photos of cepelinai, blyneliai and various other cheesy, gloppy dishes.  This is a poorly-lit shot of kiaulės audis, which is smoked pig's ear.  We had no idea - as we crunched cartilage on that dark night in the Žemaitija National Park - that so many people would find this stuff interesting.  Then, again, we may not have ordered the smoked pig's ear if we didn't at least hope they would.

2. Montenegro's Best Beaches
Some day soon, this will be the most read merlinandrebecca.com post.  It's been popular since day one, and it does really well around every vacation time.  Montenegro is newly independent and popular, so there isn't as much written about it as, say, Croatia.  We think that's why readers end up on our site.  This one feels a little bittersweet, though, because we created it while thinking "this will get so much traffic!"  But, hey, the hope is that then you stumble upon something like this.  The other hope is that more people will look beyond the big resorts that are threatening to destroy the coastline and find those little places that remain untouched… for now.

1. Albanian Food

While it's not too surprising that 3 of our 10 most popular posts are about food, Albania sneaking in for the win is a bit of a shock.  Here's our theory:  there's simply not much information available online about Albanian food.  So, unlike a search for "Italian food," you're more likely to stumble upon us.  In fact, googling those two words right now, we're right there behind wikipedia, food.com, ask.com and pinterest (which may or may not have even existed when we published this post).  If the title had been "Frogs Legs and Lamb's Head" - as I'm sure at least one of us wanted it to be - there's no way this would be our number one.  But… hey… we learned a few traffic tips along the way.  Now, add the fact that Albania was named Lonely Planet's Top Destination for 2011 and you've got yourself a winner!

Castle Hunting: Warwick

Much of England and Wales was underwater.  We'd driven through flooded streets and crossed rivers that had broken their banks and lay sprawled across the fields.  The whole of Great Britain, it seemed, was fighting off the rising waters, pumping out their cellars and trying to keep their feet dry.  Warwick, when we arrived there, was on the edge of disaster.  The river Avon was higher than it's been in years. There were sandbags across doorways and swirling eddies in people's yards.  The rain came again in the night; everyone was following the television news, watching the disasters unfolding further afield.  Warwick is a town of tudor half-timber, Georgian soberness and brick Victoriana.  It has a timeless feel to it, as though a millennium of English history's been made to happen all at once.  In a crooked-walled pub not far from the castle walls, the last of the storm beat against the windows and a drunk grandmother told us about her African Grey Parrot.  The dark corners around us were filled with furtive characters straight from Dickens or Chaucer or even the Domesday book.

We woke up to sun and a little blue sky.  When we went back to Warwick castle that morning, where we'd walked in the blustery afternoon a day before, we found its walls golden hued and the floodwaters receding.  It was an impressive sight, one of the most famous in the midlands.
Warwick's used to high tides and chaos - from the first motte-and-bailey in 1068, to the huge expansion of the middle ages, the imprisonment of King Henry IV and the English civil wars it has played a central part in England's fortified history.

It's the most expensive castle we've visited (£45 for two day passes!), and the one with the loudest music - speakers play a continuous, medieval-styled torrent of drums and synthesizers interrupted occasionally by piped-in cheering.  Because Warwick is owned by the Madame Tussauds group, there are dozens of wax-figure lords, ladies, knaves, blacksmiths, scullery maids, babies, soldiers and prisoners.  It's an ugly display of olde warts and unhealthy stoops.

To survive for nearly a thousand years, a castle has to incorporate a few tricks and have a bit of luck.  Warwick's most spectacular feature is its main tower, the Guy's Tower that soars above the rest of the structure and commands a wide view of the surrounding countryside.  This highest part was built in 1260, then rebuilt in 1315 as midland England went through it's last period of grand castle building.  The curtain walls, a second main tower and the keep were part of the same expansion.

As Britain consolidated and turned its attention outward, fortresses like this one became strategic afterthoughts.  The last significant action that Warwick saw was in 1642, when the civil war was raging through the area.  Parliamentarian forces holding the castle obtained two cannon, and the "besieging" Royalist forces installed two cannon of their own into a nearby church steeple.  A few ineffectual barrages were fired, the siege was lifted after about a month, and the Royalists beat a small retreat.

The Madame Tussauds figures - which are frighteningly lifelike - focus on an earlier episode in Warwick's history.  The castle's most interesting owner was Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick, who led a successful insurrection against King Edward IV.  In the convoluted years of the War of the Roses, Warwick was partly responsible for the overthrow of two kings, and earned the name "Kingmaker" as a result.  General troublemaking and warmongering brought assaults on his stronghold,   though none were ever successful.

The middle part of the 14th century was among the most bloody times in England's history, and the Tussauds figure-makers like to dwell on the sharp points and short lifespans.  Aside from their stillness and waxy pallor, they look just like real people.

The current structure is one of the oldest and best examples of true medieval fortress architecture still standing today.  In the fourteenth century, during the early devastation of the Hundred Years War, the castle was thickened and modified to withstand the siege-warfare weapons of the day - catapults, trebuchets and ballistas.  The towers are remarkably thick and built as cylinders to help deflect the blows.
This kind of fighting - done with glorified slingshots and battering rams - is obviously more romantically medieval than the cannons that later knocked everything down. Though catapults really weren't all that effective, and were probably used much less than people think, at Warwick they're played up mightily. Around the grounds are several models of these siege engines, looking something like monstrous, wood-and-rope insects. In the fortress foreground, on what is normally called the island, are a few model trebuchets; we'd seen just the tops of them when the river was high, and the island had washed over with water.

Warwick has been almost hermetically sealed off from the public.  In fact, it's almost impossible to catch a glimpse of the place without paying the admission price.  This despite the fact that it lies roughly  adjacent to a large town center and nearby a river and fields.  The one good, public view is from a nearby bridge, and it's fleeting.
The line of sight towards the castle wasn't cut off by Madame Tussauds, but by the later Earls of Warwick, who had converted the castle into a grand home.  The great hall and living chambers are still decorated in baronial decadence - there are countless oil paintings, queen Victoria's riding saddle, scores of suits of armor, gold-trimmed pistols, plush furniture, Queen Anne's four poster bed, silk brocading - and filled with more stately wax figures. In one bedroom, a diminutive likeness of the present Queen stands somewhat awkwardly beside a mound of pillows and blankets (apparently, her majesty visited Warwick a few years ago).

Warwick escaped the worst of the flooding. Downriver along the Avon, Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford wasn't so lucky - there, the streets were full of water and the river had run right into people's homes.  As the river slowly withdrew from around the castle walls, a tangle of branches and detritus was left behind.   The trebuchets below the castle, that had been nearly swept away, were swathed in debris when they emerged.  Pools of water were left behind in the sodden earth, and a brown wash of mud.  It looked something like a deserted battlefield after a rout.
Still, Warwick looked less sodden than triumphant.  It's walls were as impressive as ever.  A man was performing a falconry show for the tourists, flying hawks and owls over our heads while speaking over a loudspeaker.  He told jokes and fed the birds bits of chicken.  Life went on.  Warwick's been there for a thousand years.  It's seen wet feet and rain before.

Castle Hunting: Cahir Castle

Having brought the Army and my cannon near this place...  I thought fit to offer you Terms, honourable for soldiers: That you may march away, with your baggage, arms and colours; free from injury or violence. But if I be necessitated to bend my cannon upon you, you must expect the extremity usual in such cases. To avoid blood, this is offered to you by, Your servant,
Oliver Cromwell.
On the 24th of February, 1649, a fifty year old religious zealot - who was banging around Ireland with the full strength of the English cavalry - conquered Cahir castle with a letter.  It was one of the low points in the island's history, and one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of a proud fortress.

We first saw Cahir castle in the rain, as we were waiting for a bus to Cashel.  From across the street, in the dry confines of a local cafe, it didn't look like much more than a small keep and scattered towers.  It's not until you go around to the back that the full size of it is apparent.  This isn't huge for a castle, but it's very expansive for Ireland, where fortresses tend to be small and simple.
Built in several stages beginning in the 12th century, Cahir occupies a rocky position on a small island in the River Suir.  With water on two sides and a strong foundation, it was an obvious place for a fortress; hill-forts built of both wood and stone had occupied the spot for at least a millennia before the current keep was erected.

Oliver Cromwell was a curious man. Born into a middle-class family, he became one of the most powerful civil and military leaders in British history.  His bludgeoning style of warfare was at the center of the English civil war, and by the 1640's and '50's he was perhaps the key figure in the conflict.  His was the third signature on King Charles I's death warrant.  But perhaps the most well-known aspect of Cromwell's personality is his severe Protestant puritanism.  The man simply hated Catholics.  This meant that his invasion of Ireland bordered on genocide.  When he did "bend" his cannon, very little was left afterward.
With several overlapping curtain walls and a convoluted gate system, the central part of Cahir was designed to be very difficult to attack.  Despite rough masonry (some of the inner chambers look like they've been pieced together with field stones) and a highly desirable location, the castle was never taken by an invading army before the advent of gunpowder.

That all changed in 1599, when Elizabeth I sent troops and artillery onto Irish soil.  After a three day bombardment, the castle was captured for the first time in its existence.  Back in Irish hands soon after, Cahir was expanded and "improved" during the first part of the 17th century.  The outer walls were lengthened (I have no idea why) and rounded fortifications were added at the gatehouse and at the rear of the keep - rounded angles held up better against cannon fire than the older, square designs.
A great deal changed between 1600 and 1650, though, and the architectural disadvantages of the fortress became more and more apparent.  When Cromwell invaded Ireland, he came with lighter and more maneuverable guns that could be brought into range quickly and more easily than the mammoth siege weapons of the past.  Also, the new guns were actually being aimed, which sounds simple but was actually a departure from tradition.  A great deal of thought had been put into cannon warfare by the British, especially by the Englishman Nathaniel Nye. A science had arisen around the triangulation and mathematics of gunfire.  Instead of just lining up guns and hoping to hit something, Cromwell was battering fortresses with a smidge of accuracy.

Cahir remains one of Ireland's best preserved castles because - in short - they gave up at the right time.  Cromwell's forces were much stronger and more modern than anything the Irish had encountered up to that point, and the castles he was conquering weren't designed to hold up against gunpowder weapons.  High towers, square angles, a tall keep; what had been effective against previous generations of assailants were now a liability.  Large guns could attack from a greater distance, out of range of the castle's own weapons.  The high crenelations that had once provided a height advantage now made for especially large targets. Tall towers could be knocked down fairly easily, presenting the defenders with an additional danger of falling stone. Thin, walk-along ramparts offered no room to maneuver cannon, and so the garrison inside had to rely on antiquated crossbows and scattershot, underpowered muskets. Despite being somewhat "modernized," the Irish stewards hadn't really addressed any of these issues. Cahir was, in the 17th century, a dinosaur.
The motley group of conscripts who were defending Cahir had never seen cannon, and were terrified of what might happen to them if Cromwell did attack.  They gave up quickly and the Governor of Cahir turned over the fort to the English without a fight.  It's lucky for us castle enthusiasts.  Other Irish forts didn't fare nearly as well.

In all, some one hundred fortresses were destroyed by Cromwell during his campaigns.  He blew them up for harboring Royalists or ordered them "dismantled" so that they couldn't be used by the opposition.  Some see Cromwell's reign as the true end-point for the medieval castle in Ireland and Britain - the older style fortresses were simply out of date.
Cahir is now - as it has been since it surrendered - a very peaceable place.  It's hard to call it peaceful, because of the traffic that booms through town and over the castle bridges, but the setting is pleasant and the walls are sunny.  Ducks and swans paddle in the river-bend, a small farmers market was happening when we visited.  Cahir town is a pretty, colorful collection of old houses and pubs.  One can't help but think that the town is better off for having given up - they still have a castle, at least.

A Collection of Collections

Pieces of the only surviving gown belonging to Marie Antoinette.  A u-boat reconnaissance helicopter. Four hedgerow mazes. A museum dedicated to old groceries.  Another museum of Falck rescue vehicles, another of dolls, a barn of old farm equipment, more than a hundred motorcycles, planes, Parisian dresses, American cars, African shields, scent gardens, comic strips, folding campers, novelty bicycles, rare stamps, Japanese lanterns, chicken coops, treetop walkways, license plates, hotdog stands, cursed figures, impala heads... even Dracula's crypt!  It's all at Egeskov Slot, one of the most interesting and strange places we've ever walked around.  Containing no less than eight on-site museums, this is a castle experience that only just begins with bricks and arrow slits.

Egeskov castle lies at the end of a long, treelined allé in the flat countryside of Funen Island.  It's an interesting structure (billed as "Europe's best preserved renaissance water castle") that we'd come to for a castle-hunting post.  The sky was grey, though, and the light was too flat for good pictures. Funen - sometime's called "Denmark's larder" - is a low, central isle covered in beet fields and dotted with beef cows.  We passed thatched roofs and half-timbered houses on our way to the castle, all cloaked with fog and buffeted by the damp sea-wind.
If the weather was disappointing, what we found wasn't.  Let's put it this way: we arrived at Egeskov a few minutes before the gates opened at 10:00.  We left at three-thirty, half an hour before closing.  And there was still more to see.  Here, a remote-controlled, steam-powered toy boat splashes and puffs its way around the castle lake.  It let out intermittent whistles and made a delightfully self-important gurgling, chugging sound.

The name Egeskov means "oak forest," which refers to the one thousand oak pilings that the castle is built on.  Originally constructed in 1554, the fortifications are actually on the surface of the water - surprisingly, it hasn't sunk much in the centuries since.  The sight is staggering even in dim conditions - it's the kind of place one assumes couldn't really exist.*
The castle's biggest enthusiast, probably, is the current owner and inhabitant, Count Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille.  He appears on the castle website, in the brochures and in several on-site videos.  His exploits are told and retold on different info-boards: he rescued an ancient Harley Davidson from a recluse's garage, he built the world's biggest maze, he "thoroughly explored" the castle moat (Michael's a "keen diver") and dredged up old plates and canons.  We laughed when we read this bit of pomp on the official website: "Legend has it that, in the mid 1960s, a boy was born to the name Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille. Today he is the Count at Egeskov and lives in Egeskov itself."

*Not only does it exist - there are TWO Egeskov's.  A one-to-one replica was built as part of the Hokkaido Aquarium, in Japan, which is truly bizarre.  

We laughed again when we read about the count's very own suit of armor (the same one he wears on the website).  An information board tells how having the armor made fulfilled "a childhood dream" for the count.  Supposedly, it's an exact replica of the suit worn by a distant ancestor, Frands Brockenhuus - we're betting that old Frands also had a taste for the dramatic, because the piece was absolutely festooned with weaponry and covered in gold details.
Egeskov - the building - is packed to the rafters with bits and pieces from several lifetimes of collecting. The bottom floor is given over, in large part, to hunting trophies from the current count's grandfather.  Under the eaves is a strange array of windup toys and an impressive model train.  There's victorian cookware, furniture from the court of Louis XVI, old paintings, several pianos, aspic molds, rare books, metal chests, family trees and louche knick-knacks. The staff does an admirable job of dusting, but the place still feels a bit like an overcrowded antiques shop.

Fittingly, the prize attraction at Egeskov is another overstuffed house... this time in miniature.  Titania's palace is advertised as "probably the most fairytale dolls' house in the world," which is actually a bit of an understatement.  Dreamed up and built by the Englishman Sir Nevile Wilkinson for his daughter, Gwendolyn, the palace is crammed with minuscule artifacts collected over fifteen years.  The world's smallest working church organ, for example, and several dozen rare, coin-sized books.  In all, there are over three thousand pieces in the doll house.  Tiny photographs, little snowshoes, mahogany furniture, bathtubs, teddybears the size of ladybugs, porcelain figurines and potted plants fill the 18 rooms.  The decorative style is pure victorian overstuff.  It draws a crowd.

Count Michael's parents had already opened up the family home to paying visitors in the 1980's, and one has to assume that the 200,000 annual visitors are let in to pay for upkeep - it's not a cheap ticket, castles (especially ones built on the water) are expensive to maintain.  We couldn't help but wonder, though, if our host didn't relish the attention.
For all his boasting, Michael has made his home really fun.  A birdsong walk snakes through the treetops (like a small-scale baumkronenpfad), there are stilts to use, a maze to explore and, of course, Dracula's crypt... which could never be adequately explained.  The exhibits are so diverse that it would be impossible to visit and not find something of interest.  If motorcycles aren't your thing, you might like the French fashion magazine illustrations or the old harvesting machines.

The end of October is a slow time in Denmark.  The country's tourist attractions are winding up their summer hours, the days are getting dark and short, the country roads are nearly deserted.  We toured Egeskov on the last day of autumn break, before all the schoolchildren headed back to their desks and their parents went back to work.  It was Egeskov's last day open until spring.  A few special exhibitions were going on - in the Falck museum, some remote-controlled truck devotees were driving and talking about their semis.  In the main barn, where the bulk of the airplanes and cars are kept, a model steam and gas engine show was happening.  Stacks of Popular Mechanic lay on the tables next to working airplane miniatures and chuffing steam cranks.
The cars were an eclectic mix of Detroit (lots of Cadillacs and Fords), Germany (especially Mercedes) and some more exotic brands (Ferrari, Morgan, a schoolbus-sized Rolls Royce, electric one-seaters, Danish bubble cars).  Overhead hung an ultralight and a few small airplanes, a float helicopter sat on the mezzanine, rickshaws and camper vans crowded into the corners.

Such is the breadth of Egeskov's collections that some pretty serious contrasts happen in the spaces where two museums collide.  Troll dolls rub up against bicycles, kitchen pots are hung next to spring-powered monkeys, hunting trophies bristle on the same wall as collectable postage.  There are even little mini-collections that seemingly have no real place, and so are stashed away in some incongruous spot.  In the middle of the motorcycles, for example, we found a display of wooden farm animals.  Here, plastic dolls surround one of half a dozen campers.

What do you do when you inherit a family castle, your parents collections, your grandparents cars, ancestral hedgerows and formal gardens?  It must, in some ways, be tempting to sell the whole thing and walk away from the junk and the cobwebs, the headache of keeping everything dry and upright.  Or, as many European castle owners do, rent the pile out to vacationing oligarchs and live somewhere else. Count Michael seems like a different sort, though. He's not only embraced the chaos, he's added to it - particularly in the motorcycle department.
When we caught the bus back to our seaside rooming house, we wondered what the place is like in the offseason.  Egeskov is technically closed from now until April, but it's still a home.  We pictured the count (and countess, Michael is married) roaming the hallways, dreaming up new exhibits and scarier touches for his crypt, starting up his motorcycles and sitting in the old cars.  We wondered if he skated on the frozen moat or ate dinner in the big feasting hall.  It must feel very empty once all the tourists have left and the staff's gone home.  When you live in a museum, do you prefer to have it full of people or all to yourself?

Castle Hunting: Hämeenlinna

On a bright October morning, I boarded a fast train from Helsinki up to the town of Hämeenlinna, in the Finnish region of Tavastia.  Fast European trains can be disconcerting.  They marry speed and calmness so seamlessly that a chaos of landscapes becomes somehow pedestrian.  I got off in a small city quieted by early Saturday - joggers and dog walkers were my company, all of the shops were shuttered.  I'd come to look at a handsome old castle named Häme (Hämeenlinna in Finnish, "linna" means fortress) which sits at a narrow point in lake Vanajavesi.  It was an easygoing day, and a pleasant one.  The brick walls and narrow moat served as a backdrop for contemplation more than a reason for excitement.

Hämeenlinna is most interesting from across the water, when its catches the light and looks very grand.  Inside, it's as drab and colorless as a middle-school - thanks to a 1980's renovation that saw the walls whitewashed, the addition of modern stairs and fluorescent lights, hallways opened up and excessive guard-railing.  The most prominent feature, without exaggerating, is the spacious coat-check area.  Walking around, there's virtually nothing to look at.  It's like a museum between exhibitions; blank walls, scuffed floors, too many radiators, tiny windows that look out at nothing. It's a real shame, because Häme would make a great old pile.  One can catch glimpses of narrow passageways and staircases (cordoned off from the public), and there are a few unrestored rooms with vestiges of… not much.  Some of these contain folding chairs and pull-down projector screens.
Probably the highlight of the interior, in terms of medieval atmosphere, is the well room.  The well itself is dry, but the chamber is suitably damp and dark.  This is the lock on the old, metal-sheathed door.

On the far side of the water, in a wetland mess of cattails and reeds, someone has set up a boardwalk system.  The way was narrow, but it let me get right out almost to the edge of the vegetation.  A few inches of murky water covered the mud on either side; the growth, at its autumnal height, was above my head.  Still, I was able to get a few photos before retreating to more solid land.  I had a picnic on a half-sunken cement slab in the brush.  There were a few crows overhead, and their calls echoed over the water.

Brick is an interesting castle material.  In some parts of the world - like Holland and parts of Belgium - there isn't very much stone, so they built with brick.  In some cases there was plenty of stone, but the architectural shapeliness of brick was more appealing.  Hämeenlinna is a perfect example of this type of castle, and is somewhat rare for Scandinavia.
Häme was originally built as a stone garrison on a small island, sometime around the year 1300.  The walls, at that point, were low and makeshift.  The purpose of the fort was to enforce new taxes after the region had been brought under Swedish control.  Almost nothing is known about this early period, though, and there's a lot of debate about when the structure was actually assembled.  The brickwork mostly covers up the older stone, which was rough and not well cut.  During the late 14th century, as the fortress was being enlarged, redbrick was used instead of the native greystone so that the overall effect would be more visually dramatic and impressive.  In Finland - a conflict area at the time, and not very well off - this was almost unheard of, but it was common practice in other Swedish holdings across the Baltic.  Castles like Cēsis and Sigulda in Latvia, as well as Trakai in Lithuania, were built in brick because of a combination of vogue and necessity.

Häme's most interesting period - to me, at least - was during the mid and late 1700's, when it served as a "crown bakery."  Six huge ovens were built in the southern part of the castle, and a granary and wheat drying room were added above.  Because it was somewhat outdated and there were a large amount of troops in the region, the Swedes decided that the castle might best function as a kind of industrial kitchen, to keep mouths fed and supplies close at hand.  Again, not much information survives about the bakery, but a Russian survey in 1808 found that it could produce 1,500 lb. of bread and 900 lb. of rusks in one firing, which certainly sounds substantial.

Hämeenlinna is in a precarious position between Russia and the old Swedish empire, and so traded hands many times during its history.  Because it was often under threat of attack, it was modernized repeatedly.  Circular cannon batteries called "rondelles" were added at the end of the 16th century. (The rondelles, like many towers in the age of gunpowder, were circular to try to deflect enemy fire.) Soon after, earthen embankments were built up at some distance from the walls, so that cannons could be stationed at low and solid firing points.  Today, these green humps obscure much of the old buildings, which is too bad.  They are a nice place to sit and look out over the water, though.