Medieval Castle
I decided to post a few pictures of a medieval castle I visited last week.
There are links below to websites for those who want to read more about the castle's history. It might be worth checking them or googling "Raseborg castle" to see some aerial photographs.
It is a fairly small castle with most of it in ruins. When it was built (late 14th century) it situated on a small island, so they didn't need a moat around it. Here's our guide with his face politely blurred :P.
At some point at least part of the castle was covered with red bricks, so it looked much fancier than this grey building. (You can see it in this miniature model: http://www.museot.fi/nayttelykalenteri/en.php?nayttely_id=1002)
The round tower was originally twice as tall.
Inside, on ground level. I took this photo standing in the gate-keeper's tiny home. There's no roof left and the walls have mostly collapsed. Nowadays it's swallows, jackdaws and bats that live in this castle.
Here you can see better how the ground floor rooms have no roofs. The wooden walkway above them is where the roof was. The gate-keepers home is under the staircase on the right. The courtyard is the small grassy part.
Only the outer walls are left of the second floor, and even less remains of the third floor where the soldiers lived. In peaceful times, about 14 soldiers lived here. The ration of ale for them was eight litres a day (about 1.8 gallons?), and during feasts 14 litres! For women it was six litres a day. But it wasn't very strong ale.
Below is the Knights' Hall where they held parties. Women had to stay at the other end of it. No pictures or useful descriptions of the castle's interiors exist, so it's not known what kind of furniture there was.
The guide made us re-enact a part of the castle's history here... While I had to pretend to be a ship(!) that sunk in a storm, I also got to be Katariina (if I'm not mistaken by her name...) who was the only woman ever to rule this castle by herself after her husband died :).
The tour lasted for an hour and a half which I had not expected considering the small size of the castle, but our guide was really very good. It was well worth the visit.
Links:
http://www.raseborg.org/raseborg/slott/eng/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raseborg_Castle
There are links below to websites for those who want to read more about the castle's history. It might be worth checking them or googling "Raseborg castle" to see some aerial photographs.
It is a fairly small castle with most of it in ruins. When it was built (late 14th century) it situated on a small island, so they didn't need a moat around it. Here's our guide with his face politely blurred :P.
At some point at least part of the castle was covered with red bricks, so it looked much fancier than this grey building. (You can see it in this miniature model: http://www.museot.fi/nayttelykalenteri/en.php?nayttely_id=1002)
The round tower was originally twice as tall.
Inside, on ground level. I took this photo standing in the gate-keeper's tiny home. There's no roof left and the walls have mostly collapsed. Nowadays it's swallows, jackdaws and bats that live in this castle.
Here you can see better how the ground floor rooms have no roofs. The wooden walkway above them is where the roof was. The gate-keepers home is under the staircase on the right. The courtyard is the small grassy part.
Only the outer walls are left of the second floor, and even less remains of the third floor where the soldiers lived. In peaceful times, about 14 soldiers lived here. The ration of ale for them was eight litres a day (about 1.8 gallons?), and during feasts 14 litres! For women it was six litres a day. But it wasn't very strong ale.
Below is the Knights' Hall where they held parties. Women had to stay at the other end of it. No pictures or useful descriptions of the castle's interiors exist, so it's not known what kind of furniture there was.
The guide made us re-enact a part of the castle's history here... While I had to pretend to be a ship(!) that sunk in a storm, I also got to be Katariina (if I'm not mistaken by her name...) who was the only woman ever to rule this castle by herself after her husband died :).
The tour lasted for an hour and a half which I had not expected considering the small size of the castle, but our guide was really very good. It was well worth the visit.
Links:
http://www.raseborg.org/raseborg/slott/eng/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raseborg_Castle