No castle on earth carries a heavier freight of legend than this one. Perched on a rocky bluff above a mountain pass in Transylvania, its pale walls and red roofs

We come at last to the Danube, and to one of the most magnificent castle-scapes in all of Europe. High on Castle Hill, above the great river that divides Budapest

Above the rooftops and the winding river of Prague, on a long ridge crowned by the soaring spires of a great cathedral, spreads one of the most extraordinary royal complexes

There is a photograph of Burg Eltz that almost everyone has seen, even if they have never heard its name. A cluster of pale towers and steep grey roofs rising

Most castles are square, or round, or a sprawl of walls following the shape of a rock. Caerlaverock is a triangle. Rising from the flat, marshy land near the Solway

Most castles were built to keep enemies out. Caernarfon was built to keep a whole nation down. When Edward I of England finally crushed the independent princes of Wales in

Some castles guard a hill, some a river crossing, some a coast. Caerphilly guards itself with water, and lots of it. Spread across a series of great artificial lakes in

Rising from a rocky island in the middle of the River Suir, in the green county of Tipperary, Cahir Castle is one of the largest, strongest, and best-preserved medieval castles

A short distance along the coast from Elmina stands another great white fortress, larger and in some ways even more terrible in its history: Cape Coast Castle, the headquarters of

In the very centre of the Welsh capital, ringed by a great park and the bustle of the modern city, stands a castle unlike any other, a place where two