Historical ruins. GO

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comfy thread, OP

Where's that?

>tfw you're country only has 3 standing castles

Lake Garda, Italy.

St. Sophia.
For some reason, I could only find stock pics of this.

Alahan Monastery

Oshki Monastery

Don't know

Byzantine baths of Thessaloniki.

Arkadi Monastery

Beautiful

That the one in Messembria? I could find some more pics if you'd like

This might not look like much but bear with me

Those are renaissance houses, built on top of a medieval wall, build on top of a Byzantine wall(east roman), build on top of a Roman wall, build on top of a Hellenic wall, and if you know the architectural styles you can positively identify all the layers. That's 2300 years in one picture

Red chruch, near Perushtica. Used to be a roman Martyrium from the IVth century AD

Holly shit man, explore those ruins. I sell my right ball that there're diagrams for witcher armor in a chest somewhere.

That's an engraving of it from the XIXth century.

And that's a current photo

Thanks for the explanation.
Absolutely beautiful

Looks comfy.

And yet another ruin from Bulgaria, while we lack preserved castles we sure make up for it with picturesque ruins.

That's Bukelon or Vukelon depending whether you'd like to use the Bulgarian or Byzantine transcriptions. It was a Byzantine fortress on top of a hill overlooking the valley of the Tundja or Tonzus river. Earliest fortification dates to something like 370 AD as there are written sources mentioning it during the Goth-Byzantine wars. The first Bulgarian ruler to capture it was Kanasubigi Krum the Terrible. It was expanded by the Bulgarians in the XIIIth century, the keep you are seeing is almost certainly built by Tsar Michael III Shishman as evidenced by his monogram over the entrance.

Michael III Shishman's monogram written in red brick above the archway

What's interesting about the fortress is that when the Crusaders of the IVth crusade sacked Constantinople, Emperor Kaloyan of Bulgaria innitially made peace them and he negotiated to be crowned by Pope Innocent III despite being an Orthodox Ruler.

Interior

Then crusaders or Latins as they were now known however starting expanding their territory into Bulgaria, and Kaloyan swiftly allied himself with the Byzantine remnants and clashed with the Latins in the valleys bellow the fortress. He utterly annihilated their army, killing the majority of the commanders of the IVth Crusade who had sacked Constantinople and even captured the Latin Emperor Baldwin of Flanders. He is send to have spend several days locked up in the dungeon before being moved to a prison in the Bulgarian capital of Turnovgrad

It's really weird knowing that emperors might have actually bellow that arched ceiling and the place is not even a museum. It's just sitting abandoned on a hill no entrance toll, no modern infrastructure whatsoever. Just some conservation work done by archaeologists so it doesn't collapse.

Germany

the Roman theater of Merida, Spain. fun fact, there's a yearly festival where they put on Roman plays using the same stage the romans used thousands of years ago.

Morella. the castle on top of the mountain was first built by the Romans, then taken over by the Moors, and finally reconquered by the Cid.

Medina Azahara. former Moorish palace, present day archeological site.

The Bulgarifag here again, we have the same thing in my city actually albeit the theatre is in somewhat worse condition. The theater is active and constantly hosting concerts anything from Chriss Cornel to Vaya con Dios to Paradise lost, historical plays and operas. The best thing I've attended was a three night long rendition of Illiad.

we have this one in use still
we even had a hockey game in it

this is really nice!

why can't the Italians fix up the Colosseum

Northern Balkans, Byzantine style fortress from Middle Ages.

And some short video of sailing past it.
youtu.be/3EgA7JL4JEI

Nice troll bruv, however this fortress has nothing to do with the Byzantines. It's Baba Vida, it's a Bulgarian Fortress which contrary to what my countrymen think was razed to the ground in the XV century then rebuilt by Ottomans and Austrians. Whatever remains of the true medieval fortress is buried in the space between the outer wall and the courtyard which was filled with earthworks to withstand cannon fire.

It was rebuilt to look like it used to, and it used to look like a Byzantine fortress. There are paintings of it, one crusade fought there.

The Bulgarian people don't have their own "style" of fortress, they built Byzantine fortresses, probably by hiring their architects.

Not denying that we didn't have our own architectural style, after all we are a conglomeration of people A who build yurts and B people who build wooden houses, so it's only natural to adopt the style of the architecture closest to you. However Baba Vida even today shows some distinct features of a fortress designed after the advent of gunpowder weapons.

Doesn't look like it in pictures, but I believe you.

Sorry for the low quality picture but you will get the idea. What I am saying is that it still follows a very distinctly medieval plan (some of the walls even show the "Opus mixtum" style of stone/brickwork that you are referring to as Byzantine style) , but a plan which has been thoroughly converted in the XV century, however everything you see as grass inside the fort was originally empty space which was later filled to withstand cannon fire, the entire shape of the inside wall was redone making it much more angular (star forts have not yet been invented when this was converted) and you can see three gun bastions build into them.

These things actually make Baba Vida somewhat valuable as it is a pristine example of a transitional fortress between a medieval one and the later fortresses designed to withstand the cannon fire punishment

Maglic castle, Serbia

This is a model with some inaccuracies but generally showing how it looked like before it was rebuilt, one can clearly see what modifications were done.

more

Drachenfels, aka where Siegfried supposedly slew the dragon (the castle was built by the archbishop of Cologne and razed by the Swedes during the 30 years war).

Doesn't Maglic mean fog? That will explain the weather. Otherwise glorious place, been there myself.