The ten toughest castles in the world

by Sean McLachlan on

Castles make a pretty backdrop to any vacation. They conjure up images of brave knights and damsels in distress, but the reality was less romantic. Castles were fortifications built to defend important cities, ports, fords, or mountain passes. The best military minds in the world devised ways to destroy them, when they weren’t figuring out better ways to build them. Here are ten castles that proved almost too tough to take. Some took centuries before they fell, or cost the lives of hundreds of attackers. A few never fell at all.

Crac de Chevaliers
One of the best preserved Crusader castles in the Middle East, it protected the pass from the lowlands of Lebanon through the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and into the rich Orontes river valley of Syria. It’s on the Syrian side of the border but its turrets afford fine views of Lebanon. Originally an Arab castle that was taken by the French during the First Crusade in 1099, it became the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller, a knightly order that protected pilgrims in the Holy Land. They protected themselves too, by strengthening the castle and putting up walls that were up to 100 feet thick. It withstood more than one siege and even the great Saladin couldn’t take it. It eventually fell back into Muslim hands in 1271 but remained the model for castle builders in Europe.

Masada
Facing the world’s biggest empire with only a ragtag group of dedicated fighters? Go to the middle of the desert, find a sheer mesa, and hold up in it. That’s what the Sicarii, Jewish resistance fighters, did when they rebelled against the Roman Empire in the first century AD. The location was perfect. The mesa had already been fortified by King Herod as a refuge in case of rebellion, but the Sicarii rebels got it instead. Sheer cliffs rise 300 feet (90 meters) above the desert at their lowest point, and in spots tower up to 1,300 feet (400 meters). The only way up are three winding paths that are exposed to arrows and rocks coming from above. The Romans, in their typical efficiency, built a rampart up the entire way so they could roll up battering rams to breach the walls. The Sicarii committed mass suicide rather than surrender. The Roman camps and walls used to cut Masada off from the rest of the world are still plainly visible.

Numancia
The Celts in Spain faced the same problem the Sicarii did. How to defeat the Roman Empire? Numancia was one tribe’s answer. This hillfort at the headwaters of the Duero River held out for twenty years until the inevitable end came. The defenders had run out of food and had been reduced to cannibalism. Like the Sicarii, the Celts chose death before dishonor and most of them committed mass suicide in 133 BC. Spain became a Roman province. Today you can see reconstructions of the fort and Roman siege techniques at the site’s musuem.

Osaka
The samurai were brave warriors ready to face death, but even they must have thought twice about attacking this castle. Completed in 1598, it was the base of operations for Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who made peace between Japan’s many warring factions by beating them into submission. It took 200,000 soldiers more than a year to take this place in 1615, and when you look at this photo of the bare face of the ramparts you can see why. The castle combines form and function and is beautiful as well as impregnable.

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Walls of Constantinople
OK, this isn’t technically a castle, but the massive walls of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) protected the capital of Byzantium for more than a thousand years. Byzantium was the eastern half of the Roman Empire and survived long after Rome fell. The Bulgars, Slavs, and Turks all failed to take the massive double land walls and moat. It took the invention of cannon to finally destroy them. The Ottoman Turks under Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453 AD had a giant cannon that could shoot a 1,200 lb. stone ball a mile, backed up by an army that may have numbered as many as 200,000 men. The city still held out two months before falling and becoming the new Ottoman capital.

Sacsayhuaman
The Incas were master builders. Unlike most cultures, they didn’t build with regular blocks, but instead used irregularly shaped stones that fit together so precisely that not even a knife can be pushed through the cracks. Believe me, I tried. In the highlands around Cuzco, Peru, they built a series of temples and the giant fortress of Sacsayhuaman to protect them. The fortress has triple walls almost 20 feet (six meters) tall constructed in a jagged outline so the defenders could throw stones and spears at the attacking force from three sides instead of just one. It was finished sometime in the early 1500s, just in time for the Spanish to invade. The conquistadors were only able to take it after a fierce fight and the loss of Francisco Pizarro’s younger brother Juan.

Malta
Located smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean at one of its narrowest points, whoever controlled Malta controlled trade. This, of course, led to lots of wars. Malta changed hands countless times, but one of its biggest battles came in 1565 when the Ottomans tried to take the island from the Knights Hospitaller. The Knights were ready with not just one castle but three. The Ottomans had an estimated 20,000-50,000 troops. Barely 500 knights and 5,600 helpers stood in their path, but they had the castles. The Ottomans landed and started a heavy bombardment with a large number of artillery on the first fort on their list, Fort St. Elmo. The castle was reduced to rubble but its 600 defenders went down fighting. The Turks lost more than 4,000. The attack then focused on Forts St. Angelo and St. Michael, and the Turks ground up their army against the walls. After losing at least a third of their force, they called it a day and retreated. Cannonballs from the bombardment can still be seen in the fields.

Burg Eltz
This castle has the distinction of still being the home of the same family that owned it in the 12th century. Built upon a 70 meter (220 ft.) high crag next to an important trade route, it was perfectly positioned to assert power. A river flows around three sides of the crag, making it almost impossible to take. The castle is an architectural jewel and much of the fifteenth-century interior is preserved. Burg Eltz has one of the best settings of all the castles in this list. The primeval Eltz forest encloses the castle on all sides, and several historic villages are nearby. Because of its commanding position and the political skill of its owners, it was only attacked once. In 1331, Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg tried to extend his territory by attacking the castle with catapults and an early cannon. After more than two years of bombardment, the archbishop admitted defeat and went back to Luxembourg.

Carcassonne
The high walls that ring this strategic town did what many French castles could not–resist the English throughout the Hundred Years War. The Romans had a fort on this hilltop in 100 BC and some of the original stones can still be seen in the walls. Later it was a stronghold of the Cathars, a Christian sect that was destroyed in a crusade led
by the bloodthirsty Simon de Montfort, who killed anyone who he found in Cathar-controlled territory, whether they were Cathars or not. He’s the origin of the saying, “Kill them all, God will sort them out.” In 1209 he took Carcassonne, but the city stood firm against later sieges, including a long and determined one by the English. Nowadays it’s a perfect view of Gothic spires and imposing medieval walls.

Bamburgh
This Northumbrian stronghold is like many of the castles on this list in that the present structure covers up centuries of history. Bamburgh was the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria and there was a castle here from the 6th century AD. It survived a number of sieges and that’s hardly surprising when you see it standing proud on a little peninsula jutting out into the North Sea. A massive gatehouse and walls protect the landward side. In 1095, the owner Robert de Mowbray was captured by the attacking Normans but his wife took over the defense and continued to push back their assaults. She finally gave in when the Normans threatened to blind Robert. The castle fell again in 1464 during the Wars of the Roses when it became the first English castle to surrender because of an artillery bombardment. Modern technology succeeded where generations of swordsmen failed.

World Monuments Fund announces list of endangered treasures

by Sean McLachlan on

The World Monuments Fund, a private organization battling to preserve the world’s great man-made wonders, has published a list of the most endangered monuments around the world.

It’s a depressing litany of priceless places that are under threat from a variety of factors, mostly related to human greed.

Some monuments are fantastic, such as the mountaintop monasteries of Phajoding in Bhutan, where centuries of peace and solitude are being disturbed by an increasing number of trekkers seeking peace and solitude.

Others are more mundane places that you might not even notice, yet they’re important artifacts of history, like the farm fields of Hadley, Massachusetts. When the Puritans first settled here in 1659 they replicated the system of open, narrow fields that they knew from England. The field system still exists today, but this legacy of America’s early settlers has now been rezoned for commercial and residential buildings, including a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

My own adopted country of Spain has seven entries to the list. The old medieval town of Avila (pictured here) is facing increasing pressure from new building, while Gaudí’s famous cathedral in Barcelona is threatened by the construction of a high-speed railroad right next to it. That a rich, moderately-sized country should have so many entries should come as no surprise to Spanish residents. “Developers” have been ruining the Spanish landscape for years, fueling a building boom that crashed last year and flung the country into a deep recession. The most glaring example of the rapacity of the Spanish real estate market is the coastline, where a ring of apartments, homes, and hotels encircle the country like a garrote. Some of this construction is illegal, but campaigners have had only limited success in stopping it.

The list has been published every two years since 1996 in order to bring attention to cultural heritage sites that are threatened by natural or man-made factors, although the bulk of them are man-made. Many of the sites that make it onto the list get sizable donations from the World Monuments Fund to help their caretakers preserve them.

Best of luck guys, given constantly expanding urban areas and a rising population, you’ll need it.

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Historic St. Petersburg skyline threatened by giant skyscraper

by Sean McLachlan on

Residents of St. Petersburg are protesting plans to build a giant skyscraper that they say will ruin the city’s historic skyline.

Russia’s powerful gas company Gazprom plans to build a 400 meter (1,312 ft.) office building in the shape of a twisting glass needle. It would dwarf the historic buildings and churches that have made Russia’s former imperial capital famous.

While Gazprom usually gets its way, some powerful forces are aligning against the building. St. Petersburg is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Russia and a lot of money could be lost if the city’s skyline is blighted. The Cultural Ministry is calling for a legal investigation to see if the building is legal. UNESCO has warned that the building could make St. Petersburg lose its status as a World Heritage Site.

It’s unclear who will win this battle, so if you’re planning a trip to St. Petersburg, it might be a good idea to do it sooner rather than later.

Farmer in Bangladesh kills more than 83,000 rats and wins a color TV

by Jamie Rhein on

I’ve seen a rat scurry across a New York City street at night. It looked like a small cat. Startling. Rats in New York are one of the city’s long-standing jokes. The idea of the 83,450 rats that one farmer in Bangladesh killed over the last nine months, thanks to a government rat killing campaign, is astounding–seriously disgusting. Truly.

Pair those rats with the 37,450 that another Bangladeshi farmer caught and YOWZA! They are not the only two farmers who have been killing rats. Five hundred farmers showed up to the event this last week where the contest winner was named.

This massive rat killing campaign with a color TV as the grand prize was part of Bangladesh’s government’s response to the country’s serious rat problem. The rats destroy at least 1.5 million tons of grain each year, half the amount that the country exports. Last year the rats destroyed the rice crop.

Along with getting rid of a massive amount of rats in one year, the campaign has had another positive effect. Farmers have learned that they can do something about the rat problem and have motivation to do so. No, it’s not the idea of winning a color TV.

As Mokhairul Islam, a poultry farmer and first place winner found out, he needs to buy three less bags of poultry feed a week now that 83,450 rats aren’t chomping away at his chickens’ food. Killing rats makes good economic sense. Islam has vowed to keep up with his efforts.

I imagine that lessening the rat population certainly would have a positive effect on other aspects of the country’s economy– tourism for example. If there are that many rats around two people’s farms, imagine the rest of the country.

Bangladesh is a country worth visiting. For starters, it offers part of the Sundarbans National Park, UNESCO World Heritage site that protects the Royal Bengal tiger and the Ridley Sea Turtle, and also Cox’s Bazar, a fishing port town that boasts the world’s longest natural sandy beach.

Avebury–more awesome than Stonehenge

by Sean McLachlan on

Everyone’s heard of Stonehenge, the enigmatic stone circle on Salisbury Plain, but just seventeen miles to the north stands an even more imposing monument–Avebury.

Actually it’s a whole landscape of monuments. For miles around the rolling fields are dotted with the burial mounds of forgotten chieftains, and many hilltops are protected by ancient ramparts. Avebury itself is a massive stone circle with two avenues running across the fields to a pair of smaller stone circles. The entire area has been designated a World Heritage Site.

Stonehenge is more self contained, a pretty picture and fascinating to stare at, but it suffers from familiarity, so much so that the Times Online listed it as one of the world’s five most overrated tourist attractions. Avebury is far more vast, and instead of walking along a cordoned path with hundreds of other visitors, you can wander through a prehistoric landscape away from the crowd.

Getting off the bus at the village of Avebury, you don’t have far to go to see the main monument, in fact you’re right in the middle of it. An impressive circle of stones (called a henge in scientific parlance) more than a thousand feet in diameter is surrounded by a deep ditch and earthen rampart. Two smaller henges stand inside the large one. An avenue flanked by smaller stones heads south, and there used to be another one headed west, although that’s all but disappeared thanks to the march of time. This main monument was started around 3000 BC, or five thousand years ago.

Considering the region’s history, it’s amazing any of the smaller stones survive at all. During the Middle Ages the local farmers got religion in a big way and decided to destroy this reminder of their pagan past. Easier said than done. Whole villages turned out to make huge bonfires to crack the stones, and then they hauled the pieces away and used them for local buildings, a common practice throughout England and seen especially along the route of Hadrian’s Wall, where the Romans were kind enough to make properly shaped stones instead of massive monoliths.

Destruction was as dangerous as it was difficult. Local legend says that one day a group of men were working to topple a large stone and it fell over, crushing one of the workers. In 1938 archaeologists dug up a fallen stone and found the skeleton of a man underneath. He carried some 14th century coins and the tools of a barber-surgeon (the jobs were the same back then). These folks, who cut hair, lanced boils, and utterly failed to find a cure for the plague, were considered to be quasi-magical, their strange arts necessary but somewhat suspect. It’s interesting that a magical person was brought along to destroy a magical place, and it’s no wonder his death became enshrined in local memory.

Fortunately much has been preserved or restored. A walk down the avenue of stones headed south from Avebury brings you to two more famous monuments.

%Gallery-72633%The field slopes down toward the south, and as you pass around the brow of a ridge a giant conical hill appears. This is Silbury Hill, a 130 ft. chalk mound erected around 2500 BC. Nobody is sure what it was for, but some researchers noticed it’s in a large circular valley that works as a natural amphitheater. I spoke to one of the site’s volunteers who participated in an experiment a couple of years ago. A group of musicians using reconstructed prehistoric instruments played them atop the hill while people stood at various locations around it. This woman stood a mile away and could hear all the instruments clearly, except the drums which were muffled due to the rain. She could even hear a song one of the musicians sang, picking out most of the words even though artillery practice was going on at the nearby military base!

On a ridge beyond Silbury Hill is West Kennet Long Barrow, a gallery of stones forming a long hall and four side chambers, with a larger chamber at the end. All of it is covered with earth to make a long artificial ridge atop the natural one. It was started around 3600 BC and remarkably some of the burials survived to the modern era. The first two rooms flanking the gallery held the remains of women, children, and the elderly. The next two contained adults, and the big room at the end had bones only of adult males. Were these warriors? Nobody knows, but it’s fun to speculate.

All in all, Avebury makes for a fun day of wandering. I suggest starting early and taking a good pair of walking shoes and an Ordinance Survey map. There are many smaller archaeological sites in the area worth visiting that only take a mile or so of walking to get to. The visitor center in town sells detailed maps.