Eight towers
At every corner.
Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · FrDr — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Matteo Pappadopoli — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Matteo Pappadopoli — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Berthold Werner — CC BY-SA 3.0
Castel del Monte, the «castle of the mountain», is a 13th-century castle on a hill in the municipality of Andria in Apulia, southeast Italy, at 540 metres, about 50 km west of Bari in a straight line. Emperor Frederick II built it in the 1240s on land he inherited from his mother, Constance of Sicily. It has neither moat nor drawbridge, so some think it was never meant as a defensive fortress. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1996, calling it «a unique masterpiece of medieval military architecture», and it appears on the Italian one-cent euro coin. The castle is famous for its bold octagonal plan: an eight-sided wall with an octagonal tower at each corner, around an octagonal inner courtyard. Its walls are pale honey-coloured limestone with a main gate in classical style, and it stands alone on a hilltop in open green countryside. Visitors explore the octagonal courtyard and the rooms on two floors, and walk around the outside to see the towers from every side. The castle can be seen from far across the countryside; it makes a good day trip from Bari and is easiest to reach by car.
At every corner.
At the centre.
Open views.
Andria, Barletta-Andria-Trani, Apulia, Italy
By car from Bari or Andria.
About one to two hours.