Royalty and Castles
How many of you imagined your self as a prince or princess as a child?
I enjoyed reading biographies and watching documentaries on the European royal families. Recently saw the movie, The Young Victoria on the flight back from Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg where I took trips to see various castles and fortresses.
In Ghent we spent two hours touring the Castle of the Counts which dates back to the 1300s. You can see the first part of the building to be constructed, then how they built around that part and expanded to take over more land and build the structure higher.
The museum shows you how boldface the methods of maintaining power were for these dominant families with displays of the torture devices.
This is the storybook castle according to a friend.
The bedroom shows that the count believed in the benefit of sleeping upright like most people did in the era.
This was the castle owned by one of the families that became the royals in the Netherlands. King William II sold it in 1820 and the place fell into continual disrepair. Although Victor Hugo stayed there in the early 1870s.