Predjama Castle

<p>Predjama is the place where Slovenia's castles and its caves become the same subject. The castle is built into the mouth of a cave in a 123-metre cliff, so that its rear rooms simply become rock, and Guinness World Records lists it as the largest cave castle in the world. It has stood in that improbable position for more than 800 years, and the effect from the valley floor — a wall of dressed stone growing out of a wall of limestone — is unlike anything else in Europe.</p><p>Its fame rests on Erazem Lueger, the 15th-century knight and robber baron who held out here against an imperial siege in 1484. The castle was effectively unassailable because a passage behind it led up through the cave system to the open hillside, letting the defenders resupply at will; the story goes that Erazem taunted the besiegers by pelting them with fresh cherries, and was finally killed — betrayed by a servant — by a cannonball fired at the one vulnerable spot in the building, the garderobe. The caves behind the castle can be visited separately in the warmer months.</p>