posted 04-20-2002 08:49 PM            

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I have visited almost 200 castles and only taken a 'tour' four times that I can recall.
Once in Turkey where the caretaker wanted to show me around the ruins, and the other three times where the tour was compulsory.
I don't like tours much for a number of reasons;
1/ They cost money. I'd rather buy a booklet, often with good pictures, site plans and info.
2/ I can remember so little of what they say it is useless for aquiring knowledge.
3/ They are unlike to always be accurrate or up to date.
4/ The tour will dwell on sections I have no interest in, such as the rooms crammed with 16th century 'kitch', describing each painting of every pompous git that ever lived there in nauseating detail, but rush through or totally avoid the things that really interest me.
5/ They have to be selective in the information they present in the limited time, and they try to make it interesting for their typical audience. I am not typical and I want dates, dimentions and techinical information about the structures, not who slept in this bedroom and jokes about his eating habits.

Luckily, there are few castle I have visited which had tours available, as I like to seek out the older castles that have not been altered too much in later periods, and that often means going to see abandoned ruins. I once gave a group of local kids in Turkey a tour of 'their' castle. They knew it well, except for the underground sections which were too dark for them to see, so they came down with me and I shone my flashlight around for us all to see. Rule number one, always carry a flashlight!

Having said all that, one of the tours I had to take, at Carcassonne, was very informative. The guide, who only did a tour of a small section of the inner wall, carefully explained using a plan of the walls(as well as liberal pointing) where to best see, and how to identify, remains of the various building periods on the inner wall, from Roman through to Voillet le Duc.

posted 04-21-2002 05:40 AM            

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Eric is completely right about tours: in most cases, they're just boring. My advice: Read something about the castle and it's history before you visit it, then you can normaly judge at a glance if the guidebook sold at the entrance is worth its price (it should at least contain a correct floorplan). And then visit the castle alone.

And I agree in another point: Ruined castles are more interesting, because their walls will tell you more about the building's history then any portrait-paintings...

posted 04-22-2002 07:28 AM            

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Not always – at the most famous castles frequented by lots of tourists you'll sometimes get a tour at least in english (or japanese).

Here in Switzerland, at least the guidebooks of the larger castles are available in german, french and english versions and the same I saw at some french castles.

Lili: It depends what you call a "self-guided ruin". Most ruins in Switzerland, Germany and Austria or accessible for free. Sometimes they ask for 2 or 3 Euro, but 99 percent of the ruins I visit are too much offroad for the mainstream-tourists and there's never any guide to be seen (and no guidebooks either). So to get a self-guided tour needs two walks: First to enter a good library, then to enter the wilderness...