Wednesday, November 16, 2011

European Beautiful Castles II

Bagian kedua ini ditampilkan kastil kastil Perancis, Ceko dan lain lain ...


Carcassonne (France)
Carcassonne (Occitan: Carcassona) is a fortified French town in the Aude département, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc. It is separated into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. The folk etymology – involving a châtelaine named Carcas, a ruse ending a siege and the joyous ringing of bells ("Carcas sona") – though memorialized in a neo-Gothic sculpture of Mme. Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The fortress, which was thoroughly restored in 1853 by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997. A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and its environs. It was often united with the County of Razès.




Château de Chaumont (France)
The first château-fort on this site between Blois and Amboise was a primitive fortress built by Eudes II, Count of Blois, in the 10th century with the purpose of protecting Blois from attacks from his feudal rivals, the counts of Anjou. On his behalf the Norman Gelduin received it, improved it and held it as his own. His great-niece Denise de Fougère, having married Sulpice d'Amboise, the château passed into the family of Amboise for five centuries. The castle was burned to the ground in 1465 in accordance with Louis XI's orders and was later rebuilt by Charles I d'Amboise from 1465-1475 and then finished by his son, Charles II d'Amboise de Chaumont from 1498-1510, with help from his uncle, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise; some Renaissance features were to be seen in buildings that retained their overall medieval appearance.




Château de Beynac (France)
The Château de Beynac is a castle situated in the commune of Beynac-et-Cazenac, in the Dordogne département of France. The castle is one of the best preserved and best-known in the region. The castle was built from the 12th century by the barons of Beynac (one of the four baronies of Périgord) to close the valley. The sheer cliff face being sufficient to discourage any assault from that side, the defences were built up on the plateau: double crenellated walls, double moats, one of which was a deepened natural ravine, double barbican. This Middle Ages construction, with its austere appearance, is perched on top of a limestone cliff, dominating the town and the north bank of the Dordogne River.




Château de Montreuil-Bellay (France)
The Château de Montreuil-Bellay, in the town of Montreuil-Bellay, département of Maine-et-Loire, France, was first built on the site of a Gallo-Roman village high on a hill on the banks of the Thouet River. It is listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. Ownership of the castle changed several times including, through marriage, to the Cossé-Brissac family. During the French Revolution the castle was seized by the revolutionary government and used as a prison for women suspected of being royalists. During the medieval the property, consisting of more than 1,000 acres (4 km²), was part of a group of 32 villages near-by that created the then known as "L'Anjou".




Château de Chenonceau (France)
The Château de Chenonceau is a castle near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century. The current manor was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philibert Delorme. He rebuilt a castle and fortified mill on the site in the 1430s. Subsequently, his indebted heir Pierre Marques sold the castle to Thomas Bohier, Chamberlain for King Charles VIII of France in 1513. Bohier destroyed the existing castle and built an entirely new residence between 1515 and 1521; the work was sometimes overseen by his wife Katherine Briçonnet, who delighted in hosting French nobility, including King Francis I on two occasions.




Château du Plessis-Bourré (France)
Château du Plessis-Bourré is a Château of the Loire Valley in France, situated in the commune of Écuillé in the Maine-et-Loire department. Built in less than 5 years from 1468 to 1472 by Finance Minister Jean Bourré, an advisor to King Louis XI. It was acquired by Reille-Soult de Dalmatie family in 1911 and classified as a Monument historique in 1931. Open to the public, it has been managed and fully operated by Bruno & Antoinette de Ferrieres de Sauvebeuf from 1978 until January 2009. Le Plessis-Bourré until 2009 remained one of the few french castles inhabited by its owner. With the retirement of Bruno & Antoinette, Aymeric d'Anthenaise took over helped by Jean-Francois Reille-Soult Dalmatie.




Château de Saumur (France)
Located in the French town of Saumur, in the Maine-et-Loire département, the Château de Saumur was originally constructed in the tenth century by Thibault le Tricheur, comte de Blois as a fortified stronghold against Norman predations. It overlooks the confluence of the Loire and the Thouet. In 1026 it came into the hands of Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou, who bequeathed it to his Plantagenet heirs. Following its destruction in 1067, the château was rebuilt by Henry II of England in the later twelfth century. It changed hands several times until 1589 when the Protestant King Henri IV (of France and Navarre) gave the castle to Duplessis-Mornay. In the first part of the 20th century, the city of Saumur acquired the castle and began a restoration program to house the museum of the decorative arts.




Château de Sully-sur-Loire (France)
The Château de Sully-sur-Loire is a castle, converted to a palatial seigneurial residence, situated in the commune of Sully-sur-Loire, Loiret, France. It is a château-fort, a true castle, built to control one of the few sites where the Loire can be forded; the site has perhaps been fortified since Gallo-Roman times, certainly since the beginning of the eleventh century. In 1218, Philip Augustus constructed a cylindrical keep to the south of the present enclosure, of which buried foundations remain. Guy de la Trémoille, inheriting the fortress, undertook the construction of the "Donjon", flanked by four towers, beginning in 1395. To one side was added the Petit Château in the sixteenth century to provide more agreeable accommodation; Sully remodelled it.




Château de Vincennes (France)
The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis. To strengthen the site the castle was greatly enlarged replacing the earlier site in the later 14th century. A donjon tower, 52 meters high, the tallest medieval fortified structure of Europe, was added by Philip VI of France, a work that was started about 1337. The grand rectangular circuit of walls, was completed by the Valois about two generations later (ca. 1410). The donjon served as a residence for the royal family, and its buildings are known to have once held the library and personal study of Charles V. Henry V of England died in the donjon of dysentery in 1422 following the siege of Meaux.




Château de Vitré (France)
The first castle in Vitré was built of wood on a feudal motte around the year 1000 on the Sainte-Croix hill. The castle was burned down on several occasions, and eventually was bequeathed to the Benedictine monks of Marmoutier Abbey. The first stone castle was built by the baron Robert I of Vitré at the end of the 11th century. The defensive site chosen, a rocky promontory, dominated the valley of the Vilaine. A Romanesque style doorway still survives from this building. During the first half of the 13th century, baron André III, rebuilt it in its present triangular form, following the contours of the rocks, surrounded with dry moats. At his death, the land fell to the family of the Counts of Laval. Guy XII de Laval enlarged the castle in the 15th century.




Château de Pierrefonds (France)
The Château de Pierrefonds castle situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the Oise département of France. It is on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, between Villers-Cotterêts and Compiègne. In the 12th century, a castle was built on this site. Two centuries later, in 1392, the king Charles VI turned the County of Valois (of which Pierrefonds was part) into a Duchy and gave it to his brother Louis, Duke of Orléans. From 1393 to his death in 1407, the latter had the castle rebuilt by the court architect, Jean le Noir. The Château de Pierrefonds includes most of the characteristics of defensive military architecture from the Middle Ages, though it underwent a major restoration in the 19th century.




Chateau de Chambord (France)
Le Chateau de Chambord remains one of the jewels in Europe’s crown. Built back in 1547, a visit will leave you gawking at its 440 rooms, and a game of Hide and Seek will last forever.




Het Steen (Belgium)
Het Steen is an historic medieval castle in the old city center of Antwerp, Belgium, one of Europe's biggest ports. Built in 1200 – 1225, Het Steen is Antwerp's oldest building. The Dutch word "Steen" means "stone", and is used for "castle" or "fortress", as in the "Gravensteen" in Ghent, Belgium. The castle made it possible to control the access to the Schelde, the river that flows through Antwerp. It was also used as a prison between 1303 and 1827. This was not the noblest time of existence of the Steen Castle. Captivity itself was not punishment – the prison was where you awaited your sentence. Very popular punishment available was; chopping of hands, heads and/or burning and quartering. The prison’s regime was not a very honest one.




Český Krumlov Castle (Czech Republic)
Český Krumlov is a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, best known for the fine architecture and art of the historic old town and Český Krumlov Castle. Old Český Krumlov is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was given this status along with the historic Prague castle district. Construction of the town and castle began in the late 13th century at a ford in the Vltava River, which was important in trade routes in Bohemia. In 1302 the town and castle were owned by the House of Rosenberg. Emperor Rudolf II bought Krumlov in 1602 and gave it to his natural son Julius d’Austria. Emperor Ferdinand II gave Krumlov to the House of Eggenberg.




Frýdlant (Czech Republic)
Frýdlant, sometimes cited also as Frýdlant v Čechách is a town in the Liberec District of the Liberec Region in the Czech Republic. It has approximately 7,500 inhabitants and lies in the historic Bohemia region on the outskirts of the Jizera Mountains. In the 13th century the castle was held by the Ronovci House. It was first mentioned in 1278, whhen the Bohemian king Přemysl Otakar II removed the lordship from the Ronovci and gave it to Rulek of Bieberstein. The nowadays building consists of a Gothic castle with a high tower and a Renaissance chateau. The castle had a museum as early as 1801 and today is one of the most visited in the Czech Republic. The area once belonged to the Lordship of Zawidów (Seidenberg) in Upper Lusatia, held by the Bishops of Meissen.




Hluboká nad Vltavou (Czech Republic)
Hluboká nad Vltavou is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, near České Budějovice. This town was a favourite of Charles IV, who often visited when residing in České Budějovice. It is best known for its famous Windsor style chateau. The original royal castle of Přemysl Otakar II from the second half of the 13th century was rebuilt at the end of the 16th century by the Lords of Hradec. It received its present appearance under Count Jan Adam of Schwarzenberg. According to the English Windsor example, architects F. Beer and F. Deworetzky built a Romantic Neo-Gothic chateau, surrounded by a 1.9 square kilometres (0.73 sq mi) English park here in the years 1841 to 1871.




Karlštejn (Czech Republic)
 
Karlštejn Castle (German: Burg Karlstein, Czech: Hrad Karlštejn) is a large Gothic castle founded 1348 AD by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor-elect and King of Bohemia. The castle served as a place for safekeeping the Imperial Regalia as well as the Bohemian coronation jewels, holy relics and other royal treasures. Located about 30 km southwest of Prague above the village named Karlštejn, it is one of the most famous and most frequently visited castles in the Czech Republic. In 1422, during the siege of the castle, Hussite attackers used Biological warfare when Prince Sigismund Korybut used catapults to throw dead (but not plague-infected) bodies and 2000 carriage-loads of dung over the walls, apparently managing to spread infection among the defenders.




 Pernštejn Castle (Czech Republic)
Pernštejn Castle (Czech: hrad Pernštejn) is a castle located on a rock above the village of Nedvědice and the rivers Svratka and Nedvědička, some 40 km northwest of Brno, in the Vysočina Region, Czech Republic. Pernštejn came to be known as the marble castle because of the marble-like stone used to frame the doors and windows. The family branch seated at the castle and adopted the then fashionable name Pernštejn, which is the Czech version probably derived of the German name, Bärenstein – the "Bear Rock". Its history is closly connected to the Lords of Pernštejn (Pernštejnové) and their descendants.




 Prague Castle (Czech Republic)
 
Prague Castle (Czech: Pražský hrad) is a castle in Prague where the Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept here. Prague Castle is one of the biggest castles in the world (according to Guinness Book of Records the biggest ancient castle) at about 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide. The history of the castle stretches back to the 9th century (870). The first walled building was the church of Our Lady. The Basilica of Saint George and the Basilica of St. Vitus were founded in the first half of the 10th century. The first convent in Bohemia was founded in the castle, next to the church of St. George. A Romanesque palace was erected here during the 12th century.




Egeskov Castle (Denmark)
Egeskov Castle (Danish: Egeskov Slot) is located in the south of the island of Funen, Denmark. The castle is Europe's best preserved Renaissance water castle. The castle is constructed on oaken piles and located in a small lake with a maximum depth of 5 meters (16 ft). Originally, the only access was by means of a drawbridge. According to legend, it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundation, hence the name Egeskov (“oak forest”). The castle consists of two long buildings connected by a thick double wall, allowing defenders to abandon one house and continue fighting from the other. The double wall is over one meter thick and contains secret staircases and a well. Defenders were able to attack an enemy's flanks from the two round corner towers. Other medieval defences include artillery ports, scalding holes and arrow slits.




Kronborg (Denmark)
Kronborg is situated near the town of Helsingør (immortalised as Elsinore in Shakespeare's Hamlet) on the extreme northeastern tip of Zealand at the narrowest point of the Øresund, the sound between Denmark and Sweden. In this part, the sound is only 4 km wide, hence the strategic importance of maintaining a fortress at this location commanding one of the few outlets of the Baltic Sea. The castle has for centuries been one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe and was added to UNESCO's World Heritage Sites list on November 30, 2000. The castle's story dates back to a fortress, Krogen, built in the 1420s by the Danish king, Eric of Pomerania. The king insisted on the payment of sound dues by all ships wishing to enter or leave the Baltic Sea; to help enforce his demands, he built a powerful fortress controlling the sound.




 Frederiksborg Castle (Denmark)
Frederiksborg Castle is a water castle in Hillerød on the Danish island of Zealand . It is the largest and most important building of the Northern Renaissance and today houses the Danish National Museum.



Source: Wikipedia dan berbagai sumber