Devín Castle

On our way home from Bratislava, we took a quick detour to see one of the oldest castle remains in Slovakia, Hrad Devín.  Situated just a few kilometers away, the city of Devin is just inside the Slovakian/Austrian border, and on the banks of the Danube and Morava rivers.  This location made it one of the most coveted pieces of land back in the day.  And by back in the day I mean way way back...to between 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC.  In the past few centuries everyone from the Celts to the Romans to the Russians have built fortresses upon this ridge of land.  They did this because it allowed them to control trade along the rivers, as well as traffic along the Amber Road.  The Russians even erected the Iron Curtain just in front of the castle, and it stood until the Velvet Divorce in 1989.

The final fortress built upon the land, Hrad Devín, was probably built sometime in the mid-800's, and added on to for the next couple of centuries, until the last additions were made in the 1500's.  As it stands today, there is not much of the original castle left. After his defeat in the Battle of Pressburg, Napoleon I of France had his men destroy it because he still thought of it as a threat.  But what is left is extremely impressive and we had a lot of fun exploring the lands and hearing the tales that go with it.

The view as you are walking up to the grounds.  I doesn't look like much.

The remains of a church built in 850.

They use sheep to keep the grass cut around the grounds.  No motorized machines at all are used at the site.

The watchtower is probably the most famous part still left of the castle.  (That is it on the right side of the picture, sitting right on the water, and it is known as Maiden Tower).  Legend has it that a virgin maiden was locked in that tower for many years, and finally leapt to her death to escape.

We explored the nooks and crannies of each piece of rock.  We ran through the doorways to see what ruins lay on the other side and we wove our way through the maze of steps that took us to the top.  And finally, we tried on a bronze pair of butterfly wings and found that we made very cute butterflies.  And then we headed home, tired and happy to have seen a small bit of Slovakian history.