Inspiration

[Jareth]

Hey there, On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, I visited castle Morro. I thought that these pics of a real castle might help inspire castle builders. Yeah, I know it's more of a "Pirate" castle than a Knights castle, but it can be both, right? Besides, a lot of Real Medieval castles are in poor shape, while this one was used up to world war II and then kept in fairly good restoration.

Anyway, here we go. BTW, I left the traffic cone in for size comparison.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=500828

I also hope people can post their own inspiration pictures. Show us your local castles!

[The_Cook]

From a historical perspective it's worth pointing out that a lot of the features of Morro castle are 18th Century rather than Medieval since it was a fort designed to protect shipping interests in the Carribean.

For proper medieval castles I'm afraid that you have to travel to Europe, even then many of those that are still standing have been updated to handle the changes in warfare through the ages.

My local castle is the Tower Of London, but if you're ever in England then Rochester (ruined) and Dover (restored) are both worth seeing. For a more romantic castle then Bodiam Castle or Scotney Castle are both worth seeing. The North Wales castles are also supposed to be very impressive but it's not an area of Britain that I've had time to explore.

One of our continental contributors will have to chip in with details of castles in mainland Europe.