Castel del Monte

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Castel Del Monte, Inscribed 1996), An Octagonal Castle Built For Frederick II Around 1240 On The Murge Plateau · Andria, Puglia

Frederick II built this on an empty ridge in Puglia around 1240 and nobody has ever agreed what it was for. It is a perfect octagon with an octagonal tower on each of its eight corners and an octagonal courtyard in the middle, built to proportions that repeat the same geometry at every scale, and it has no kitchen, no stables, no moat and no defensive works of any kind, which rules out the one thing a castle is usually for. Hunting lodge, astronomical instrument, geometric exercise, a crown in stone for a king who liked being called stupor mundi: all have been argued and none is settled. It stands alone on a low hill with nothing around it for miles, which is most of its effect, and the silhouette is familiar to every Italian because it is on the one-cent euro coin. Inside is bare, and visitors expecting furnished rooms leave disappointed: the building is the exhibit, and the way to read it is to walk the whole circuit of the outside before going in at all.

Strada Statale 170, Andria, Puglia, 76123, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: a state monument open daily from mid-morning to late afternoon, running later in summer and closing earlier in winter, with a last admission before closing and closure on a small number of public holidays. The state-museum free first Sunday applies. The shuttle from the lower car park operates in season and in daylight only. There is nothing else open at the site itself. Confirm the hours and the shuttle before driving out, because there is nothing nearby if it is shut.

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