Wow. That blows away some of what’s on that list. Why do you discount the interior?
The only two castles I’ve been to are Neuschwanstein and Edinburgh. I loved Edinburgh because you can see a lot of the interior in several different areas of the place. I loved Neuschwanstein, but it was a huge disappointment in that you barely saw any of the interior. Plus, because I had to travel from Stuttgart, I only caught the last tour of the day, which was in German. 
One gets the idea of how Rowling got the idea for Hogwarts.
Supposedly (according to the person on the walking tour we went on in Edinburgh) the inspiration for Hogwarts was George Heriot’s School which is just a couple of blocks from the castle.
Is that second photograph from the Grassmarket?
Yes, it’s from the east end of the Grassmarket.
One of the cafes she wrote the first book in (The Elephant House) is very close by, although it doesn’t quite have a view of the school, iirc. But I can easily believe Heriot’s was the inspiration for Hogwarts.
If the cafe doesn’t have a good view of it, she’d merely have to walk through Greyfriars Churchyard to see it fairly close up.
I think the title of the original article should be “Some Castles We Happened to Have Photos Of.” Some nice castles? Yes. The “World’s Most Beautiful?” Not a chance. Karlstejn, about 30minutes outside Prague, is prettier than almost all of those pictured. There are a dozen or more contenders along the Rhein between Rudesheim and Koblenz, and more if you go all the way to Koln. Bled in Slovenia, bunches of castles in the Austrian Alps, tons more in the Czech and Slovak Republics (not even including ruins), and bunches in France put the list in the article to shame.
They missed Chenonceau in the Loire Valley of France:
http://www.chenonceau.com/media/gb/index_gb.php
We were there this summer. It was incredibly beautiful. Originally purchased by Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri II of France, the castle was the scene of many spectacular parties. After Henri died his wife Catherine de Medici took it from her.
There are two formal gardens that remain on either side. One pays homage to Diane and the other to Catherine.
Speaking of Hohenzollern, does anybody know if this picis legit (i.e. does it really get that foggy in that area or has this been digitally enhanced)? If not that’s one of the most beautiful castle pics ever.
It says “the link has expired”.
I wouldn’t doubt that’s real - a thick valley fog will do that. Here in the Bay Area I’ve seen fog create similar tableaus with just promontories like Angel and Alcatraz island standing out from the Bay or high points standing out in the central valley.
Wow, awesome.
Yeah, I was in Elephant House the other week. They’re really milking the Harry Potter connection.
Yeah, but half the castles people bring up in these threads are unrecognisable as castles, to me. Many chateaux aren’t castles. Neither is some large German house built in the 1800s, or palaces on an island in a lake. If it didn’t house cannon batteries, a garrison, or was regularly contested over by rival factions, then IMO it’s not a castle. Half these examples look like they’d be blown away in a second, if actually attacked. To my mind castles are the large stone structures that the Normans brought with them in the 11th century, with a motte, bailey, moat, extensive fortifications etc, and those built in a similar style elsewhere.
So if rival factions took one look at it and didn’t bother with the contesting, it doesn’t count as a castle? Or if there isn’t a moat? Besalú is a fortified town and San Juan de la Peña a monastery, but the “lack of contestedness” isn’t what I’d use to define them as “non-castles.”
That is the only road into Besalú.
No, because the sentence of mine that you referenced was a disjunction. Clearly your example is a fortified town, but ignoring that, it was a large defensive structure that possibly maintained a garrison. It’s therefore more of a castle, to my mind, than some neo-Romantic German “castle” built in the tail end of the 19th century.
There isn’t a hard and fast line between a palace and a castle. A lot of castles were re-purposed as palaces. Or used simultaneously. Fortifications which never housed a head of state are usually not castles either, but again, often used cross purpose - i.e. the Tower of London has been (IIRC) a fort, a palace, a castle and a prison.
Then you have the strange buildings - like Crazy Ludwigs “Castles” - built to look like fairy tale castles - which are definitely palaces. Or Lowenburg - which looks like a castle, but was built in the 18th century.
I think Göring actually had some very distant Jewish ancestry, being descended from a German noble family (Eberlin) which had converted from Judaism to Christianity hundreds of years ago. Correct me if I’m wrong on that. He also had several Jewish associates who he shielded from the Nazi persecutions, on the basis of favoritism or possibly bribes. Göring was never really one of the hardcore, ideologically-driven anti-Semitic Nazis like Himmler and Heydrich; he was more of a greedy opportunist who rode along with the Nazi party in order to gain prestige and steal more money for himself.
Wait, what? Castles needn’t have housed a head of state. Skipton Castle never housed a king, yet it’s unmistakably a castle, and I doubt many British castles ever did house a head of state.
I guess my point is that I only view buildings as castles when they were intended to maintain control of an area, be lived in, yet resist attack from opposing forces. Listing a “castle” built 30 years before the advent of aircraft carriers, and never intended to play the role of a real castle, in a list with castles dating back 1000 years isn’t exactly fair. There’s a certain skill to pulling off designing a building with walls 6 foot thick and making it still look nice.
