Slovakia: July 15: Castle Tour: Trencin, Beckov, Cachtice

On our way up to our first castle in Slovakia. This one, Trencin, is very well preserved and is used for exhibitions and medieval shows.

It sits up on a cliff, so we have to hike up the steep slopes. Gio really had to work hard!

The beginning of Gio's love for cannons.

Looking down at the maze of structures.

Pretty wildflowers on the way up.

Our first view of the village of Trencin from the castle hill. This castle was used as a fortification to protect the river Vah which was an important trading route between Poland, Northern Bohemia, and the Baltics and Budapest to the South.

Gio about to climb the stairs to the top of the tower.

View from the Top.

In the castle yard, there were beautiful birds on display. We've never seen owls like this in real life, so we were pretty excited to see this one.

There were also many falcons.

They also had this little ride for kids. Gio loved it, of course.

After Trencin, we headed back down along the Vah to the Beckov castle ruins. 

Gio had just been talking about bowling and how much he enjoys it when we came upon this similar game at the castle ruins. 

The castle was originally build in the 12th centure and then prettied up in the 17th. It burned in late 1700s and left to ruin.

Eamon really liked this castle too.

This is the chapel.

We had a lot of discussions about catapults after seeing this! Gio was really into it.

The boys coming down from the steep ruins. It's really cool that they made the place accessible to people to explore. 

Gio loading the cannon. This little cannon was able to penetrate castle walls. 

View from the guard tower. On the other side of this hill is a sheer cliff face.

The tombstones here are all written in Hebrew. We'll have to do a little research on that. 

Here's the sheer cliff I referred to above.

A pretty field on the way to Cachtice Castle.

They were doing some heavy construction so we couldn't tour it. This is where the Countess nicknamed Bloody Liz lived. Apparently, she tortured a killed 600 peasant women and bathed in their blood to keep herself looking youthful. They don't know how true this story is, but it's kind of an interesting legend nonetheless.