Castle Strečno

Strečno, Slovakia, Slovakia

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Castle Strečno near Strečno village in northern Slovakia dramatically overlooks the Váh River, with settlement history tracing to the 5th-4th centuries BC and a Great Moravian hillfort on site. Built at the 13th-14th century turn as a medieval fortress—first recorded in 1316—it started with an 18x22-meter core including a square bergfried tower (8x8 meters) guarding a residential building, gate, rock-cut rainwater tank, and early 14th-century southern outer ward. Expanded in the 15th century under Barbara of Cilli with a northern palace, chapel, 88-meter well, recruit tower, northern tower, second fortification circuit, and horseshoe bastions, it saw Renaissance upgrades like arcaded buildings and cannon-adapted bastions, plus 17th-century Baroque bastions under Ferenc Wesselényi before partial ruin. Today, its reconstructed ruins form a national cultural heritage site managed as a museum with medieval reenactments.