Predjama Castle

Predjama Castle is built into the mouth of a cave in a vertical cliff face near Postojna in southwestern Slovenia, first recorded in written sources in 1274 under an earlier Gothic structure that was later rebuilt in its present Renaissance form during the sixteenth century. Its unusual construction, wedged into the rock rather than standing free, allowed defenders access to a network of tunnels behind the castle leading up through the cliff, which local legend credits with letting the knight Erazem Lueger resist a prolonged siege in the 1480s by smuggling in supplies. The castle's combination of masonry walls fused directly to the natural cave opening makes it one of the most distinctive examples of defensive architecture adapted to a karst landscape anywhere in Europe. It survives largely intact today and functions as a museum furnished to evoke its medieval and Renaissance occupation.