The cliff setting
A vertical 112 metres above the river.
The original uploader was Jurbox at Polish Wikipedia. — CC BY-SA 2.5 · Oravské múzeum — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Stjepko Krehula — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Radosław Botev — CC BY 3.0 pl
Spiš is vaster, closer to Poprad and combines with Levoča; Orava is more beautifully sited and more completely furnished but two hours away. For a visitor based in the Tatras: Spiš first.
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A castle climbing a vertical rock above a river: Orava is built on a cliff a hundred and twelve metres above the Orava river in northern Slovakia, appearing from below to grow out of the stone — one of central Europe's most beautifully sited castles, and its most famous on film: the silent horror Nosferatu was shot here in 1922, and this is Count Orlok's castle. Raised after the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, it grew on three levels — lower, middle and upper — linked by a long stair up the rock, and was restored after a fire in 1800. The guided tour passes dining halls, the chapel, the library, furnished rooms and a natural history museum, ending in the upper castle with a view down the valley. Two hours from Poprad and one from Žilina; some five hundred steps inside the castle, with a small village and cafés below. On summer evenings torchlit night tours and costumed performances are staged.
A vertical 112 metres above the river.
A view down the whole Orava valley.
Oravský Podzámok, Slovakia