Set direct­ly in the side of a large, crag­gy cliff face, Pred­ja­ma is cer­tain­ly one of the most visu­al­ly arrest­ing cas­tles on Earth. Nes­tled in the mouth of a cave, its advan­ta­geous posi­tion made it very hard to attack, and defend­ers could replen­ish their sup­plies through a hid­den net­work of cave pas­sages.

Built and destroyed numer­ous times over the cen­turies, Pred­ja­ma Cas­tle can be found just a short dri­ve away from Slovenia’s cap­i­tal of Ljubl­jana. A great time of year to vis­it is in July, when it hosts a col­or­ful and chaot­ic medieval fes­ti­val and joust­ing com­pe­ti­tion.