The architectural glory of European country is represented by their magnificent castles. Besides the intricate work of art, it reveals the technology and methods on how it was built. It also reflects the country’s civilisation and how people have evolve alongside while building the castle. Which justify the popularity of castle as a tourist attraction.

They are a delightful sight for people who are interested to unravel the buried stories or legends that these castle embodied with. Secret dungeons or annex, haunted castle you name it! In this post, we have listed some of the most beautiful castles standing in the world that one must visit during their castles exploration expedition.

Be sure to also check out these following:

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• Beautiful Photos of: Spain

Bodiam Castle, England

Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. Bodiam Castle has no keep, having its various chambers built around the outer defensive walls and inner courts. Its corners and entrance are marked by towers, and topped by crenellations. Its structure, details and situation in an artificial watery landscape indicate that display was an important aspect of the castle’s design as well as defence.

Lichtenstein Castle, Germany

Lichtenstein Castle is situated on a cliff located near Honau in the Swabian Alb, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. Its self-descriptive name in English means “light stone.” The castle contains a large collection of historic weapons and armour.

De Haar Castle, Netherlands

Castle De Haar is located near Haarzuilens, in the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands. The interior of the castle is decorated with richly ornamented woodcarving, which reminds one of the interior of a Roman Catholic church.

Blair Castle, Scotland

Blair Castle stands in its grounds near the village of Blair Atholl in Perthshire in Scotland. The Castle, one of Scotland’s major stately homes, is open for visitors on a daily basis. Its many rooms feature important collections of weapons, hunting trophies, souvenirs of the Murray clan, ethnographica, paintings, furniture, needlework etc, collected by the Murray family over many generations.

Moritzburg Castle, Germany

Schloss Moritzburg is a Baroque castle in the municipality of Moritzburg in the German state of Saxony, about 13 km northwest of the Saxon capital Dresden. The castle is famous for its sandstone decorations and stuccos.

Hohensalzburg Castle, Austria

Hohensalzburg Castle is a castle in the Austrian city of Salzburg, atop the Festungsberg. With a length of 250 meters and a width of 150 meters, it is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.

Trakoscan Castle, Croatia

Trakoscan is a castle located in northern Croatia that dates back to the 13th century. It has been meticulously maintained and is currently one of the best preserved historic buildings in the country.

Ashford Castle, Ireland

Ashford Castle is a medieval castle near Cong in County Galway, Ireland, on the shore of Lough Corrib. Geographically the castle is located in Co. Galway on the southern side of the Cong River.

Vianden Castle, Luxembourg

Castle of Vianden is located in Vianden, north-eastern Luxembourg. Castle of Vianden was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries on the foundations of a Roman ‘castellum’ and a Carolingian refuge. It is one of the largest and most beautiful feudal residences of the romanesque and gothic periods in Europe.

Boldt Castle, US – New York

Boldt Castle, located on Heart Island (New York) in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River, along the northern border of New York State, is a major landmark and tourist attraction in its region.

Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

Neuschwanstein Castle is a 19th-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Fussen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark

Frederiksborg castle is a castle in Hillered, Denmark. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV, and is now known as The Museum of National History. The palace is located on three small islands in the middle of Palace Lake, (Danish, Slotse), and is adjoined by a large, baroque formal garden.

Castle of Chambord, France

The royal Chateau de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France is one of the most recognizable chateaux in the world because of its very distinct French Renaissance architecture that blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Italian structures.

Leeds Castle, England

Leeds Castle is located 4 miles southeast of Maidstone, Kent, England. Dates back to 1119, though a manor house stood on the same site from the 9th century. The castle and grounds lie to the east of the village of Leeds, Kent, which should not be confused with the far bigger and better-known city of Leeds in West Yorkshire.

Matsumoto castle, Japan

Matsumoto Castle, also known as the “Crow Castle” because of its black exterior, is one of Japan’s premier historic castles. It is located in the city of Matsumoto, in Nagano Prefecture and is within easy reach of Tokyo by road or rail.

Gifu Castle, Japan

Gifu Castle is a castle located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Along with Mount Kinka and the Nagara River, it is one of the main symbols of the city.

Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, France

“Sleeping Beauty’s Castle” is a structure that stands at the centre of the Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris and is a continuation of a concept first seen at Disneyland in California. The castle is home to an Audio-Animatronic dragon, which at 27 metres from head to tail was the largest Animatronic figure ever built.

Kilkenny Castle, Ireland

Kilkenny Castle is a castle in Kilkenny, Ireland built in 1195. It was a symbol of Norman occupation and in its original thirteenth-century condition it would have formed an important element of the defences of the town with four large circular corner towers and a massive ditch, part of which can still be seen today on the Parade.

Hatley Castle, Canada

Hatley Park National Historic Site is located in Colwood, British Columbia in Greater Victoria. It is the site of Hatley Castle and Royal Roads University. The castle is the setting of the X-Men film series as Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. It was used as the mansion in the Made-For-TV movie Generation X, which is based on a comic that is a spin off of X-Men, also castle appears in the Smallville television series

Herstmonceux Castle, England

Herstmonceux Castle is a brick-built Tudor castle near Herstmonceux, East Sussex, United Kingdom. Today it is the home of the Bader International Study Centre of Queen’s University, Canada.

Castle of Jehay, Belgium

Jehay Castle is a castle situated in the municipality of Amay in the province of Liege in Belgium. The castle is open for visitors a few days a week during summer.

Himeji Castle, Japan

Himeji Castle is a hilltop Japanese castle complex located in Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture. It is regarded as the finest surviving example of 17th century Japanese castle architecture. It comprises a network of 83 buildings with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period.

Culzean Castle, Scotland

Culzean Castle is a castle near Maybole, Carrick, on the Ayrshire coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The clifftop castle lies within the Culzean Castle Country Park and is opened to the public.

Peles Castle, Romania

Peles Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle placed in an idyllic setting in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914.

Guaita Castle, San Marino

Guaita is one of three peaks which overlooks the city of San Marino, the capital of San Marino. The Guaita fortress is the oldest of the three towers constructed on Monte Titano, and the most famous. It was built in the 11th century and served briefly as a prison.

Dover Castle, England

Dover Castle is a medieval castle in Dover, Kent, England. It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the “Key to England” due to its defensive significance throughout history.

Dunrobin Castle, Scotland

Dunrobin Castle is a stately home in Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland. It is the seat of the Countess of Sutherland and the Clan Sutherland. It is located 1 mile north of Golspie, and approximately 5 miles south of Brora.

Hochosterwitz Castle, Austria

Hochosterwitz Castle is considered to be one of Austria’s most impressive medieval castles. It is situated on a 160 metres Dolomite rock near Sankt Georgen am Langsee, east of the town of Sankt Veit an der Glan in the state of Carinthia. The castle is one of the state’s landmarks and can be seen from about 30 km away on a clear day.

Rocca Pia Castle, Italy

Castle Rocca Pia is located in Rocca Pia – a comune and town in the Province of L’Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy. The castle replaced the earlier Callisto II Borgia and derives its name from Pio II Piccolomini, the Humanist Pope who had ordered that the castle be built in Tivoli.

Eltz Castle, Germany

Burg Eltz is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is situated on a 70m rock spur, on an important Roman trade route between the rich farm lands and their markets.

Malahide Castle, Ireland

Malahide Castle, parts of which date to the 12th century, lies close to the village of Malahide, nine miles north of Dublin in Ireland. The Castle, along with its subsidiary attractions, is operated as a tourist attraction by Dublin Tourism.

Chateau de Chenonceau Castle, France

The Chateau de Chenonceau is a castle near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire departement 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.

Burg Hohenwerfen Castle, Austria

Burg Hohenwerfen is a castle approximately 40 km south of the Austrian city of Salzburg. The castle is majestically surrounded by the Berchtesgaden Alps and the Tennengebirge mountain range.

Palacio da Pena, Portugal

The Pena National Palace is a Romanticist palace in Sao Pedro de Penaferrim, municipality of Sintra, Portugal. The palace stands on the top of a hill above the town of Sintra, and on a clear day it can be easily seen from Lisbon and much of its metropolitan area.

Cochem Castle, Germany

Cochem is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. It is situated in the valley of the Mosel, at the foot of a hill surrounded by a feudal castle. The castle of Cochem was first mentioned in 1130. Today the castle is still well-equipped with Renaissance and Baroque furniture, which was carefully collected by the Raven’s family. Cochem Castle, situated on an outstanding hill more than 100 metres above the river Moselle.

Krak des Chevaliers, Syria

Krak des Chevaliers, transliterated Crac des Chevaliers, is a Crusader fortress in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval military castles in the world. It is located approximately 40 km west of the city of Homs, close to the border of Lebanon, and is administratively part of the Homs Governorate.

The Fisherman’s Bastion, Hungary

The Halaszbastya or Fisherman’s Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church.

Castle of La Mota, Spain

The Castle of the La Mota or Castillo de La Mota is a reconstructed medieval fortress, located in the town of Medina del Campo, province of Valladolid, Spain. It is so named because of its location on an elevated hill, a mota, from where it dominates the town and surrounding land.

Biltmore Estate, US – North Carolina

Biltmore House is a Châteauesque-styled mansion near Asheville, North Carolina, built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895. It is the largest privately-owned home in the United States.

Castillo de Coca, Spain

Castillo de Coca is castle located in the province of Segovia, central Spain. The castle, belonging to the House of Alba, now serves as a tourist attraction, having been listed as a historical site by the government since 1931.

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