Nestled in the mouth of a yawning cave, halfway up a steep, 400-foot cliff in southwest Slovenia, Predjama Castle once stood an impregnable fortress before an invading army of the Hapsburgs.
The 800-year-old structure, so local legend goes, was once occupied by a renegade robber knight named Erasmus, who met his unceremonious end while doing his business in the castle’s outhouse.
The earliest-known record of Predjama Castle dates from as early as 1274. Originally built in Gothic style, the breathtaking medieval fortification presses up against a vertical precipice like something from a fantasy film. It actually inspired George R. R. Martin’s fictional castle in Westeros….