castles and princesses

Its 7 o'clock at night and I am here on my own (with two sick kids) - oh the peace and quiet!! Teas finished, the dishes are done and the rest of the crew are at training .... bliss. Two girls sick today, so that just leaves Tommy and Matthew ..... no time for them to get sick now the competition is upon us almost.

 Todays training was not until 8pm this evening and so a trip to visit the Orava Castle was planned to combat the cabin fever (not that the kids think that being glued to a computer screen is cabin fever .....) Just the juniors went leaving Anna sick in bed and in the capable hands of her brother Shaun and poor old Jess off colour and spending the day with Kellie.
Orava Castle is  45 minute drive from here and was first inhabited in the early 1200's and it has had constant modification and additions ever since. It has been a very important protection for the long-distance merchants route leading to Poland. Part of the lower castle was also a very ornate palace at one stage. It poured with rain on the trip over and the vans were full of grumpy faced teenagers ..... the passing scenery wasn't great and the rain didn't help. Cleared up and the sun shone weakly as we arrived, purchased our ticket and joined the crowd outside the castle gate waiting for the guided tour. You cant go inside on your own and unfortunately we had missed the English speaking tour and ours was entirely in Slovakian. I have to give credit to the kids, they rose to the challenge and were attentive and excellent ambassadors for New Zealand - and of course Martin and Pavel translated the juicy bits for us. It probably helped that the girl guiding was easy on the eye ....apparently. It was an experience of a life-time for us all to be inside a fully restored castle - the brickwork, stonework, narrow winding staircases, huge fireplaces, low doorways, 4 metre thick walls, holes in the walls and ceilings to pour boiling oil out of onto intruders, the torture chamber, the dining chairs which the rollicking nobles sat in to dine and drink, they sat sideways like a saddle and had a wooden bar around them to hold them in as they got more and more inebriated, the bed chamber where it was common for the guard to remain in the room with just a curtain around him while the 'lovers' had their fun. Needless to say the kids loved Martins re-interpretation of the stories. Pavel told the girls not to sit on a particular chair because it was haunted and if you sat on it you would be married within the year...there were paintings of many of the previous owners each one depicting the mans personality, for example Luke showed me one man who had a crippled arm and hand painted, apparently he had caught his wife being unfaithful and had skinned her, so he was portrayed as a crippled wicked man - and Dan showed  me another of a man with 6 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other because he was very good at taking (6 fingers) and not good at giving (4 fingers) and on it went.

walking into the castle towards the drawbridge

guarding the way in

entrance tunnel with holes in the ceiling to pour the boiling oil through, its very long and goes almost in a circle and would have been very dark making it hard for intruders to see where they were going and what lay in store for them, Dan's quote of the day was 'wouldn't they just follow the lights?'

inside the castle courtyard heading into the residential palace - Patrick, Matthew, Robin, Luke

listening to the Slovakian guide, girls a bit cold so cuddled up

higglety pigglety building of additions and alterations over the centuries

Martin and Pavel interpreting

our lot standing around the entrance to a 90m deep well within the centre of the castle listening to the guide 

Callum and Luke in the torture chamber, the racks - slowly wind you up till your sockets popped and your limbs pulled off, there was a bed with stocks for your feet which were coated with salt, the goats were brought in and they licked the soles of your feet raw, more salt was applied and the torture continued

Pavel - found his princess - he says not many people get their photo taken with a real princess in a castle.....

stairways leading up and up

climbing up and up to the top of the castle tower - the cantilevers were very dodgy and it didn't pay to think about it, some others in the tour couldn't cope with the heights and had to climb back down

still climbing - the top part of the castle sits on a wedge shaped piece of rock with shear cliffs falling away on all sides - the wind was whistling through the stone slits at the very top and the view was incredible

almost down again, central courtyard

back down again

A great experience - although it took about an hour longer than we anticipated and we didn't get home for lunch until just after 3pm. Dinner at 5.45 and away to training. Dale and Aaron both at the team leaders meeting tonight. Our training tomorrow is at 11am, boat scrutineering tomorrow, demo runs at 4pm and then the opening ceremony at 6.30 although we still don't know where it actually will be held.