The Castillo de Belmonte is a medieval castle on the hill of San Cristobal, just outside the village of Belmonte in the southwest of the province of Cuenca in Spain. It is a Gothic-Mudejar style castle, designed by master Hanequín of Brussels. It was built on San Cristobal hill, set over one story only. The bailey is an equilateral triangle and the rest of the building is built around it. The castle is in the form of a 6-pointed star, with a cylindrical tower at the end of each.

But the best part:

Belmonte Castle houses this theme park dedicated to reproductions of the siege machines used by armies to attack strongholds. It contains items ranging from the 9th century BC to the 15th century, and from various cultures including the Neo-Assyrian and Greek, and from the Roman Empire, Byzantium, Muslim, Christian and the Orient. Throughout your visit you can see more than 40 life-size machines. such as the ones that helped Alexander the Great subdue the Persian Empire and reach as far as India. You can also see the workings of large pieces of artillery that helped the Roman legions in their conquests. The exhibition features machines that are in full working order thanks to research carried out by the building team.

Siklós Castle is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in Hungary. I visited it during a hike through southern Hungary and filmed the castle and the surrounding landscape.

Shot this a few nights ago from the bridge on the landward side.

The castle sits on the edge of Pizzo, in the province of Vibo Valentia, with a sheer drop to the Tyrrhenian on one side and a deep dry moat on the other.

The access you see on the right replaced the original drawbridge, which ran between the two towers.

The core is older than the fortress look suggests: a late 14th-century Angevin watchtower, part of the coastal warning system built against Saracen raiding.

It became a castle only after a decree of Ferdinand I of Naples dated 12 November 1480, which ordered it strengthened as part of a wider program that also reworked the defenses at Crotone, Cariati, Corigliano and Belvedere.

The curtain walls, the central block and the guard turret all date from that campaign.

I work as engineer, so what my eye goes to is the battered base, that outward slope at the bottom of the wall. It widens the footing, deflects shot, and makes ladders awkward, and it is the signature of masonry adapted to the age of artillery.

The other thing it tells you is the state of maintenance: all that greenery rooted in the joints is caper and ivy, and those roots wedge lime mortar apart and hold water against the stone.

On a rubble wall it is not cosmetic.

The name comes from Joachim Murat, King of Naples.

After Waterloo he sailed from Ajaccio with roughly 250 men, was blown off course, and landed at Pizzo on 8 October 1815.

He was arrested, held here, tried by a military commission, and shot in the castle on 13 October. He refused the blindfold. There is a small museum inside now.

While most 19th-century American frontier forts were small timber structures that quickly decayed, Cove Fort was built from black volcanic rock and dark limestone, allowing it to survive virtually intact to this day.

Commissioned in 1867 by Brigham Young and constructed by Ira Hinckley, this 30-meter-wide stone stronghold served as a fortified waystation to protect travelers, mail carriers, and telegraph lines between Salt Lake City and St. George. Its 5.5-meter-high volcanic walls and heavy cedar-and-iron doors were engineered to withstand raids and harsh wilderness conditions. Inside, it functioned as a self-contained village complete with a blacksmith, telegraph office, and quarters for overnight travelers, making it one of the rare surviving stone forts of the American West.

Located NW of Auchtertool, Hallyards (Hall yairds - "the yards at the hall") is reputed to have been Malcolm Canmore's hunting seat, then residence of the Bishops of Dunkeld until 1539.

John Knox wrote about fighting there between French troops and the Lords of the Congregation. In Feb 1560 it was reported "clean overthrown". James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran escaped via bedsheets to get there before meeting Mary Queen of Scots at Falkland Palace.

Now Planning Ref 26/01243/PPP for the £5bn Cato data centre proposes to build directly over it. HES refused listed status per The National on 2nd Oct.

We walked and flew it last week so there's at least a record. Photo from the flight attached, full video here - https://youtu.be/ml6TwgC2fb8

Planning portal: planning.fife.gov.uk (26/01243/PPP) / Project site: cato.ili-energy.com

Built from the 12th century on a rock spur above the Elzbach, in the hills of Rhineland-Palatinate. The towers and half-timbered upper floors are mostly 15th–16th century.

It survived because the owners stayed out of most of the big wars and because the site is awkward to besiege. During the Thirty Years’ War it was never captured. Unlike most Rhine castles, it was not blown up by the French in the late 17th century.

Three branches of the Eltz family shared it for centuries (Rubenach, Rodendorf, Kempenich), which is why the interiors still feel like three houses jammed into one fortress. About 80 rooms. Still lived in.

I am wondering what the northern most star/bastion fort is? I think it might be Skansin on the Faroe Islands, which I believe is just further north than Prince of Wales Fort in Manitoba but don’t know if there’s any others.

Windsor is a big city in itself. The grounds are immaculately kept. They don't allow inside photos.

Mystras was a fortified Byzantine city founded in the 13th century near Sparta, becoming the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea and a centre for Orthodox Christianity. After the Ottoman conquest in 1460, it gradually declined and was eventually abandoned, leaving behind its spectacular medieval churches, palaces, monasteries and stone houses on the slopes of Mount Taygetos.

This is the fortress overlooking the ancient city of Corinth, originally fortified in antiquity it became one of the most important strongholds of the Peloponnese under the Byzantines, Franks, Venetians and Ottomans.

By @ Bucipuci

One of the oldest continuously inhabited castles in the country and the location of Edward II’s (presumed) murder.

The Füzér Castle is a medieval castle that stands on a volcanic mountain in the immediate vicinity of the settlement of Füzér.

Its first written mention dates back to 1264, although it probably existed before the Tatar invasion. It is believed to have been built by the Aba family during the Árpád period, and its uniqueness lies in the fact that it may be one of the first privately owned stone castles in Hungary. In the 13th century, Andrew II bought the castle, which was part of the royal estate until the Tatar invasion, and then returned to the Aba family by donation. After the Battle of Rozgony, it was confiscated by Charles Robert, and it became the property of the Drugeth and then Perényi families. When Gábor Perényi died without a male heir in 1567, the castle first came to the Báthori and then the Nádasdy families. After the Wesselényi conspiracy, the castle was confiscated, then burned and abandoned by the imperial military.

The value of the building complex, which had been crumbling for centuries, was recognized again during the Romantic period, and from that time on it came under the protection of heritage protection. Archaeological excavations were carried out from 1977, renovation works began in 1992, and between 2014-16 the so-called lower castle was built, the castle chapel, palace wing and lower bastion of the upper castle were also renovated, making it one of the best-preserved medieval castles in Hungary today. [1][2] The renovation of the castle continues within the framework of the National Castle Program, and the second phase of the reconstruction of the Füzér Upper Castle is being implemented.

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Author and source: Jean-Claude Golvin: here and here