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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Fairytale Appeal of Castles

The Tower of London
Since childhood, I have had a fascination with castles. I blame the Walt Disney Corporation and its diabolical talent for separating middle class families from their disposable income. When my family visited Disneyworld, I immediately wanted to visit Cinderella's Castle. We walked through the castle a couple of times during our touring day, passing between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, and I admired the sparkly mosaics depicting scenes from Cinderella's story. I desperately wanted to go inside the castle's rooms, but my mother refused. It was nothing but an expensive restaurant, she told me. Our family returned to the parking lot for lunch, eating sandwiches inside our RV. So close, and yet I was not worthy to explore the castle.

Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy
Living in the Midwest, castles were hard to come by. I was delighted when Medieval Times opened up in Schaumburg, IL. When I was in my early 20s, my boyfriend and I made a pilgrimage there. The experience was disappointing, and we never went back. When we married a couple years later, we honeymooned at Disneyworld and had lunch at King Stephen's Banquet Hall (the "expensive restaurant" inside the castle). I enjoyed the experience at the time, but only because it had been on my bucket list. The architecture, décor, and food were far superior to Medieval Times, but that's a pretty low bar.

Castillo de Santa Barbara, Alicante, Spain
Ten years later, we celebrated our anniversary in Las Vegas and briefly visited the Excalibur hotel. It was fun in a cheesy way, but we had no desire to eat at Sir Galahad's Steakhouse or attend their knightly combat show (which appeared to be patterned after the one at Medieval Times).



It was only as we entered middle age that we had the opportunity to travel across the pond and visit some real medieval castles. My first was the Tower of London. It's a hodgepodge of several different eras, with one part dating back to William the Conqueror. It's full of history (and tourists).

Windsor Castle
I have fond memories of the 14th-century red brick Castelvecchio ("old castle") in Verona, Italy. It now houses an art museum, and the crowds were modest in the shoulder season. Scrambling over the ruins of the Castillo de Santa Barbara in Alicante, Spain made for a wonderful birthday. Windsor Castle is everything one expects a castle to be (including an active royal residence).

No matter how many castles I manage to visit, I do not believe I will ever tire of them. They are timeless and romantic, whether ruined or sumptuously furnished. Cardiff Castle provides an 
excellent example of both, an old Norman shell keep and the surrounding castle, remodeled during the Victorian era into a gothic revival fantasy.

Tessa Dare's current early-19th-century series, Castles Ever After, seems to have been written with me in mind. The first book, Romancing the Duke, is my favorite so far. It involves a semi-ruined castle, a bookish heroine with a secret, and a grumpy-but-hot duke. It also lampoons re-enactors and fandom communities. I may have squirmed a little bit.

I enjoyed the second book, Say Yes to the Marquess (which lampoons the wedding industry), and I'm very much looking forward to the third, When a Scot Ties the Knot, which is coming out in just a couple weeks. I'm seriously jonesing for a castle fix.