There were 2 sections of the castle - a living quarters for the governor vs king and then what I will refer to as the business side. Around the outside of the castle of course were these battlement walls. The
cut-outs are crenels and the high parts are merlons. Think: Shoot your arrow then duck for cover!
These slit windows were called loopholes, also used to shoot arrows at attackers.
From what I could gather, there was a fire that destroyed a good part of the castle during WWII. I don't recall reading much as to the cause of the fire. Bombings? So there has been a lot of work to restore the castle but there are still sections that are in their original state which could be seen as we walked around the back.
The wind was pretty cold so we would huddle wherever we could.
Here is the back side of the castle with a room that has not been restored.
One of the inlets on the wall had some holes which Hazel was very curious about.
I asked her to use her nose to figure out what they were for and she wrinkled her nose and looked at me and correctly identified them as a place to relieve oneself. Either there are 100's of years of #1 and #2 soaked into the brick or every once and again someone gives it a go because it still smells.
Another view of the un-restored room.
This was interesting. I am sure most could guess that this was a small chapel built for the ruler of the area but the plaque on the wall let us know that it only served this purpose for a very short time. It was converted into a...? You guessed it, another room for torture. Seems so odd that a place built to house shrines and lit by the cross-shaped window would be used to engage in such un-Christian behavior.
Hazel walked past the sun and I noted the bright glow which I pointed out and she had fun standing there turning the room pink.
Not to be left out...
The castle was built on the foundation of another large building which can be seen here. This basement was turned into a cellar. The squares on the wall were spots for beams that were used to create a floor. At the end of the room, you can see a doorway on the bottom right where there is a closed-off staircase (all run down) and the exit is at the top left where it would come out into the second floor of the cellar.
The stairs on the left lead to the latrine pits. Not sure how they cleared out the excrement. Seems like that would eventually stink up the whole place.
And on that positive note - this was our first castle experience here in Europe. It was really cool to see this castle and walk around and think about the history that occurred here. Much of which we will never know about. It would be neat to have seen it in action back in the day
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