janbet falala kristin
Haldis Rucci
Incidentally, as much as I love holiday movies, every year they cause me to violate my No White Supremacy Pledge. Normally I decline to watch movies that have exclusively white people as major characters. But Brooke Shields as a vacationing novelist and Cary Elwes as the grumpy duke! Come on.
14:30 Sophie was told to stay put, but the moment Cary walks away to talk to a prospective wedding couple who want to use the castle as a venue, she sneaks upstairs to the twelve bedrooms. She whispers to herself as she walks around: there are three doors, circular stairway. Clearly remembering details for her next book.
We heard that a Netflix fantasy show had chosen Predjama castle for filming shots of the thrid season of "the Witcher", so Chris jumped on one of our E Bikes and sped down the Secret Path Forest Path to Predjama Castle to take a peek!
To be fair, we don't have time to subscribe to Netflix, so a quick internet check left us shocked that this was a mainly British cast for a show we had never heard of! It does seem pretty popular though and is the kinda of show one of the Lodge team would deffo watch!
With the amazing number of secret palces we know around Green Slovenia we are not surprised in the least that a big TV show has finally discovered the magic and beauty of this tiny country containing everything that is great about Europe in one little box for filming.
The only really surprising thing is that more shows have not been shot here as there are secret fantasy waterfalls and stunning rivers and lakes ALL OVER THE PLACE! The caves are just Lord of the Rings, there is a Kozjak Waterfall that should be straight out of the Hobbit and castle after castle that would have totally graced Game of Thrones!
Anyway, one of, if not the THE most beautiful castle in the world is just a 40 min hike or a 10 min E Bike ride along a secret forest path, but not far into the forest, near the castle I found a sign on the path in Slovenian, prob saying the road was closed. So I cycled a bit further to get tantalisingly close to the castle, but still around a forest bend and here I saw a bigger barrier closing the road and some kinda security car.
So I turned round, but all was not lost and I was determined to get a glimpse of the largest cliff castle in the world on the same day of filming, 4th April 2022.. (we know lots of local secret places where you can do this), so with the power of the E Bike to help, I whizzed back up the secret track to another spot where you get a clean, clear, but distant view, above the tree line of Pyjama castle nestling 70m up a 121m high cliff..
Just like magic, the castle appeared shrowded in smoke and with the camera zoom you could get a closer view, much clearer on the eye than in the photo, so here are a few shots below to proove we may have actually "watched" a bit of the Witcher.. at last!
As I pushed the bike back towards the road, a car rolled up and edged carefully onto the tiny secret forest track and a couple got out.. We soon got talking and these guys were genuine "Witcher" fans!
They had been circling the best defended castle in the world all day and this was their last attempt to get a good look at the castle, so I congratulated and left them in peace as they got their telescope out and settled down at the top of the hill to have a look!
The purpose of this blog is NOT to try to defeat security or discover any spoilers, (so sorry for mentioning the smoke, but we guess there is a lot of smoke in the Witcher anyway)? Our aim is to celebrate the fact that Green Slovenia will be appearing on the small screen once again on a world stage.. those superfans told me the Witcher had also filmed here the day before on top of our local Mt Nanos, which should look amazing on the telly.. maybe you will see the Lodge from the top of there!!
(We know several other even more secret forest routes to the castle that could not have been sealed off and especially one that leads to a field where you can get a fab close up side view of the castle, but this was not our aim for the day).
To date, only Jackie Chan has discovered the magic of Predjama castle for a movie.. The second Lion Witch and Wardrobe film, Prince Caspian was filmed on the uberbeautiful Soca river, but considering the amazing beauty of this small country we hope that more films will be showcased here.. Let's face it, it will give the special effects team a bit of a rest!
And finally, here is a link to our "Local Legends" page where you can find out a little more about some of the fantastic local super heroes that have so far been ignored by Hollywood..
There is loads of material here.. a boy who was given super strengh by a beautiful fairy he protected from the sun, a smuggler "Robin Hood" character with a big axe who could carry his own horse in the forest to avoid detection and saved the Austrian Emperor from the Ottoman threat AND Predjama castle even has its own true legend, a cheeky knight, who would make a great film character, as he holed up in this castle for a whole year gorging himself on cherries and throwing them off the battlements at the starving army camped outside for a year!
And if they ever want to film "the Twitcher" instead of "the Witcher", then Green Slovenia is still the place to come as Cerknica, the Biggest Disappearing Lake in Europe has more than 50% of all European bird species at just one massive pool of water!
I must confess though, one of the biggest questions I had after the first film was of course, where they filmed it. To my surprise, the entire film was pretty much shot in one of my favourite underrated gems in Europe: Romania!
But while the London Belgravia is lovely, you should know that the Belgravia depicted in the Princess Switch 1 is actually the Romanian town of Carei, in the Satu Mare county, close to the Hungarian border in north-western Romania.
The Princess Switch 1 starts in Chicago, where the protagonist Stacy (AKA Vanessa Hudgens WITHOUT a fake accent) runs a bakery and is high-key stressed all the time/heartbroken from being dumped by Paul (who we all hate).
As I said earlier, the Princess Switch filmed in the Romanian town of Carei. According to the Gazeta Nord-Vest, filming took place in February and May and over 100 locals were recruited as extras for the movie.
The dining room where Margaret and Antonio have tea appears to be this one at Hopetoun, and the party scene seems to have been filmed in this dining space. The dining room where we see Olivia chatting with Edward is also pictured here.
Thanks for letting us discover these beautiful places. Montenaro castle reminds me of a castle in my country: Seneffe Castle, in Belgium: -your-visit
It is pretty smaller but the side galleries are similar.
Belgium is rather underrated, as you said in your post about Brussels, and mainly the French-speaking part.
I long to go to Scotland and visit those marvelous places.
I love your blog and all the detail about the location of where the Princess Switch Movies were filmed. Like you, I found the movie very entertaining and loved the locations where the three movies were filmed. Romania was a pleasant surprise.
Want to know why rich people changed residences so much? Because they stunk, literally. When the privies were used too much, it stunk up the whole castle and they would move somewhere else while the poop aired out. Thank God for toilets!
Dan Jones tells thehistory behind one old British castle each episode. He walks through each ofthem, discussing how the castle was used throughout the time periods it wasactive including many gory details (the best kind!).
I especially enjoyed thepractical understanding of living in many of these places. They basicallyenhanced whatever terrible weather the area was experiencing. They were coldand drafty, unless they were hot and stuffy.
If you get by car, there are 2 main parking areas nearby the castle. Once you will enter to the street leading to the castle there are employees who will guide you to the less busy parking spots. The entrance fee for 1 day is 20 Ron (about 4 euro).
If you opt for train, you should note some inside tips regarding the trains railways in Romania. Beside the national train railways , there are private trains companies which work better: they are more comfortable, the prices are lower and the delays are lesser. For this trip, I arrived by train, with Softrans private train line. The tickets could be bought on line or directly from the train controller.
Peles Castle is a great option for a day trip since Sinaia is a very small resort. The main sights are Peles Castle and Pelisor Castle but the area is perfect to spend some quality time close to the nature offering lots of walking trails into the forest and mountain hikes.
But A Castle for Christmas is a Netflix movie, so I set my standards accordingly. Somehow, it still managed to exceed all of my expectations and even had me bawling my eyeballs out at 12:40 a.m. (No seriously, I had to pause, get out of bed and grab a tissue before I could continue.)
Released on November 26, 2021, A Castle for Christmas tells the story of Sophie Brown (Brooke Shields), ne McGuinty, a recently divorced and disgraced American romance author from New York City. With her fans angry at her for killing off the main love interest of her novels, Sophie impulsively decides to travel to Dun Dunbar, Scotland, where her dad is from. There, she falls in love with the castle, the people in the village and, as anticipated, the Duke of Dun Dunbar (Cary Elwes).
Weissenstein castle, one of the main filming locations from the hit Netflix series The Empress, is opening its doors for a truly grand stay. The remarkable palace is getting ready to welcome guests to a sumptuous suite, which has been given an imperial makeover that will transport guests back in time to the late 19th century when Empress Elizabeth was at the height of her fame.
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