HERITAGE/ Get Impressed! World’s Historic Castles

Scotland’s iconic castles are bucking the economic downturn by posting record visitor numbers and increased income. Historic Scotland has this year announced an unprecedented surge in visitors to Edinburgh Castle, where more than 920,000 people passed through the gates in the six months to September, up around ten per cent on the same time last year, including an all-time monthly record of more than 205,000 visitors in August. The rise in numbers has been repeated at numerous other His...

Through the ages, castles have always been designed to impress architecturally, to project a message of strength and wealth though not necessarily comfort for their occupants. We have seen numerous castles in our travels, but what makes us remember one from another? It is usually the human interest stories associated with those who built or lived in them. In peaceable Victoria, British Columbia, there was certainly no need for personal battlements in the late 19th and early 20th century, but ...

In looking at what makes a ‘top destination’ it is best to consider this from the perspective of the staff who present these iconic places to visitors from near and far on a daily basis, so a typical day in the summer season starts. It is 7 am and the start of another glorious summer’s day at Tintagel Castle on the North Cornish coast. The blue skies, castle ruins, rocky cove beneath the island and the craggy cliffs still belong to the seabirds as they perform aerial acrobat...

Castle (ancient Roman “castrum” and “castellum”), and the old Germanic “burgus”, once related to military architecture, have become an interchangeable term for an encloistered, inhabited fortification, for medieval residences of noble people seeking a safe abode in fortified settlements sometimes as large as towns (e.g. Edinburgh, Carcassonne, Prague’s hradjin). Since 16th century these awe-inspiring constructions have also ranked as “Schloss” (Germanic) or “zamek” (Slavic) describing a closed ...

The origins of Domfront, a ruined castle in the Orne département of France, go back a thousand years. Today, many elements of its historic past still stand proudly on the rock and provoke the admiration of all the visitors. The remains that we can see today were erected by Henry I Beauclerc, third son of William the Conqueror and King of England, to protect the southern border of the Norman Duchy, after the Domfront area was added to Normandy around 1050. The site is situated 80 meters...