Visit Spis

Why visit Spis

Spiš Castle (Spišský hrad) is the largest medieval castle complex in Central Europe — 41,000 m² of dramatic limestone ruins on a long, elevated ridge, visible from kilometres away across the rolling fields of eastern Slovakia. The Hungarian kings founded the original fortress here in the early 12th century to guard the lucrative medieval trade route from Kraków to Buda; over the next 500 years it grew into the staggering complex you see today, with three concentric courtyards, multiple bastions, a Romanesque palace, a Gothic chapel, and a deep dungeon. Burned down in 1780 and never rebuilt, the castle is now a beautifully maintained ruin that you can walk through freely — the climb up to the Upper Castle keep gives an extraordinary panorama over the Spiš region all the way to the Tatras. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, together with the impossibly photogenic nearby ecclesiastical complex of Spišská Kapitula (the 'Slovak Vatican') and the small medieval town of Spišské Podhradie below. The wider Spiš region is full of beautifully preserved medieval Saxon villages: Levōca (UNESCO-listed walled town with the world's tallest wooden Gothic altar), Kezōmarok, and the small mining town of Banska Štiavnica.