Immerse yourself in the world's most majestic castles and palaces — architectural treasures bearing witness to history, power and refinement across the ages. 26 min per episode, HD & 4K.
36 programs
Perched on a hill above the plain not far from Tirana, the castle of Preza keeps its walls and its tower, and shelters within them a small mosque with a slender minaret. Fortress and place of prayer share a single enclosure, and a commanding view of the country below.
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Standing on a low hill in the Ararat plain, Khor Virap faces the snow cap of Mount Ararat across a closed frontier. Beneath the church, a deep pit is venerated as the place where Gregory the Illuminator was held before the conversion of Armenia to Christianity.
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Before the Forbidden City, there was Shenyang. The Mukden Palace preserves the ceremonial architecture of the early Qing rulers, a blend of Manchu, Han and Mongol traditions listed as World Heritage.
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Moat, gates, marble terraces and the great ceremonial halls: the first part follows the Forbidden City along its imperial axis, from the outer defences to the throne of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
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The second part moves past the ceremonial halls into the inner court, the residential palaces, the gardens and the collections, where the daily life of the imperial household comes into focus.
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Walls, bastions and a fortress on the hill protect a colonial city of balconies, plazas and churches. Cartagena de Indias, inscribed on the World Heritage List, is filmed as port, stronghold and living town.
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Courtyards, painted ceilings, stained glass and gardens: the Khan's Palace was the seat of the Crimean khanate, and remains the fullest surviving image of its court culture.
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Domes, horseshoe arches and terraces facing the sea: the Stamboli villa is a showpiece of early twentieth-century resort architecture on the Crimean coast.
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In the forests west of Prague, Krivoklat and Karlstejn stand as complementary faces of medieval Bohemia: a Gothic hunting residence and a hilltop castle raised to shelter the imperial regalia.
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Perched on a rocky spur above the vineyards of the Corbières, Aguilar is one of the fortresses known as the Cathar castles. Its concentric walls and towers were built to hold a medieval frontier between two kingdoms.
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One of the largest historic houses of Kashan, the Ameri residence unfolds through a succession of courtyards, reception halls and service wings. Built for a leading family of the city and enlarged over generations, it has been restored and returned to use.
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Visible for miles across the Judean hills, the truncated cone of Herodion conceals the palace-fortress raised by Herod the Great: round towers, cisterns, a bathhouse, and tunnels cut by rebels generations later.
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In the oasis of Jericho stand the remains of an Umayyad palace complex: carved stucco, a monumental bathhouse, a stone rosette window, and the celebrated Tree of Life mosaic, among the finest of the early Islamic period.
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On an isolated plateau above the Dead Sea, Herod's fortified palace descends the cliff in three terraces. Below, the Roman camps and siege ramp remain visible — one of the most complete battlefields of antiquity.
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On a terrace overlooking the Aosta Valley, the Royal Castle of Sarre owes its present form to Victor Emmanuel II, who made it the base for his hunting expeditions in the mountains that later became the Gran Paradiso National Park.
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The interiors of the Royal Castle of Sarre are unlike any other Savoy residence: whole galleries decorated with ibex horns and chamois trophies, alongside apartments, portraits and furnishings that recount the dynasty's alpine life.
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Introd stands where the Val di Rhêmes and the Valsavarenche open off the main Aosta Valley. Its castle, rebuilt over the centuries around an irregular, almost circular plan, watches over the meadows and larch woods at the gateway to the Gran Paradiso.
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In the Aosta Valley, where almost every rocky spur carries a tower, the castle of La Mothe overlooks the village that grew in its shadow. Stone walls, narrow lanes and high pastures compose a picture of alpine life shaped by the fortress above.
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Set apart from the main road, Montmayeur belongs to the chain of castles that guard the Aosta Valley. Reached through woods and pasture, it presents a strong silhouette against the mountains and a landscape of great cinematic quality.
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Perched on a rocky shelf above Châtillon, Ussel belongs to the family of monobloc castles: a compact rectangular mass with corner towers, closer to a fortified residence than to a walled enclosure. Long abandoned, it has been consolidated and reopened.
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Graines occupies a rocky knoll above Brusson, in the Val d'Ayas. What survives is a ring of curtain walls enclosing the remains of a keep and a small chapel — the archaic type of alpine castle, built for control of a valley rather than for comfort.
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Built for the della Rovere on designs by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the Rocca of Mondavio is a textbook of early modern military architecture: sloping walls, a polygonal keep and firing galleries conceived against artillery. It survives essentially intact.
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Raised for Federico da Montefeltro, the Ducal Palace of Urbino is a defining building of the Italian Renaissance: the twin-turreted façade, the luminous courtyard, and the studiolo lined with trompe-l'œil marquetry. It now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.
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Saint-Germain belongs to the long line of fortified sites that guard the Aosta Valley. Set above the valley floor, its walls and the rock beneath them have merged into a single form, in a landscape of vineyards, woods and high summits.
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Built as a summer residence for Queen Margherita of Savoy at Gressoney, Castel Savoia is an eclectic composition of turrets and gables set in an alpine garden, looking out towards the Monte Rosa massif at the head of the Lys valley.
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Ringed by two circuits of walls, Gradara commands the hills between the Marche and Romagna. A Malatesta stronghold and a coveted prize among rival houses, it is also the setting tradition assigns to Paolo and Francesca, the lovers of Dante's Inferno.
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Above the town of Verrès, in Italy's Aosta Valley, a castle built as a single monolithic cube dominates a strategic alpine corridor. Held by the Challant family, it fuses fortress and residence in one uncompromising block of stone.
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Built by the merchants of Porto as their stock exchange, the Palacio da Bolsa combines a glass-roofed neoclassical courtyard with the extraordinary Arab Room, a Moorish revival hall of carved and gilded arabesques.
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Designed by the Italian architect Nicolau Nasoni, the Palace of Freixo stands on the bank of the Douro east of Porto. Its curved facades, carved granite and decorated interiors represent Portuguese Baroque at its most refined.
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Raised in the early twentieth century on the site of the former princely court of Moldavia, the Palace of Culture in Iasi combines neo-Gothic monumentality with a landmark clock tower. It now houses several of Romania's major regional museums.
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Built by the Sheremetev family as a summer residence, Kuskovo pairs a wooden palace with a formal French garden, pavilions, a grotto and an orangery. One of the most complete 18th-century estate ensembles preserved in Moscow.
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Where the Banat plain finally rises, Vršac spreads beneath vine-covered slopes and a solitary medieval tower. Baroque streets, churches of two confessions and a long winemaking tradition define the town.
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Unusually, Kežmarok Castle stands within the town rather than above it. Built in the late Middle Ages and later remodelled as a noble residence, it now houses the museum of this historic Spiš town.
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Guarding the route between Hungary and Poland, Stará Ľubovňa Castle grew from medieval stronghold to aristocratic residence. Its walls kept watch over the Spiš towns pledged to the Polish crown for centuries.
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Above the village of Zborov in north-eastern Slovakia, the ruins of a medieval castle command the wooded ridges of the Šariš region. Consolidation work has made the site accessible again.
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Perched on the escarpment above Romney Marsh in Kent, Lympne Castle looks out over ground that was open water in Roman times. Below its walls lie the collapsed remains of a Roman fort of the Saxon Shore.
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