Denmark - Part 3 - Spøttrup Borg

Having brought international visitors to your hometown, you always want to give them some of the best sightseeing the region can deliver, so we headed of to the local castle: Spøttrup Castle (Spøttrup Borg).

Spøttrup is Denmarks best preserved medieval castle. It has been standing tall for more than 500 years, some of them in honor and glory and quite a few where it was badly neglected. Middle of last century the Danish government took over the caretaker role i.e. they started paying the bills, and an extensive restoration was initiated to bring Spøttrup back to former glory.

Walking around inside the castle a Danish summer day you realize that the place was not built for comfort, you barely manage to feel the warmth of the sun and can just imagine how freezing cold it will be to visit outside of the summer months. The meter thick walls are built for war; they will stop a canon ball, but at the same time they will create a heat sink so efficient that it will take the wood from a small forest to keep the place heated during winter.

When built Spøttrup was a formidable stronghold. Before taking on the actual castle any attackers would have to negotiate two moats with an internal bank while coping with whatever the fortified soldiers could throw at them.
The little extension on the wall in the photo above is one of the so called "hemmeligheder" (secrets) that the castle sports .. absolute state of the art in toilet plumbing back in the day .. just boil the water from the inner moat before drinking :-D

The place is full of small details, one of the clever designed features of a castle like Spøttrup is that all winding staircases are spiraling clock wise up, so that a right handed swordsman defending the castle against intruders will have an advantage swinging his weapon - Good thinking! :-)


All good! It has been a few years, since last time I visited Spøttrup so very nice to see it all again. Having a visitor along is a great way to reacquaint yourself with all the good stuff you saw when you were a kid - bringing your camera along is a fantastic way to see it all from a new angle. ;-)