5:04 The castles were not only homes of kings. It was a needed protection. Built on high places, they were usually fortresses protecting the town, the danger could be seen from distance and the villagers could run and hide there too. Some of the castles/fortresses were built on borders or on big commercial routes, protecting them. Also, at least in Slovakia, the castles were built close enough to see at least one other in the distance, so they could signal to each other when there was danger. Later (since like 16th century) more castles were built to protect the country from Ottomans/Turks. Only in the last centuries the castles were not needed as much for protection and some of them were rebuilt to be more comfortable to live in and not just cold stone. There were also new castles built not on the hills anymore, but in the towns or cities, where the noble people lived. Most of the castles had numerous owners in the history, numerous noble families, they belonged to the kings, but they often gave them to their noble men to live there etc. The oldest castle in Slovakia, Devín, was built in the 7th century by our Slavic/Old Slovak ancestors, but people lived on that hill long time before, even in prehistoric times.
It's already like that, even here in Belgium they destroy ecosystems to put a big ass center parks with a big ass spa (terhills resort Maasmechelen). But it's okay because they plant new trees they think. 🤦🏻♂️
@@dennisengelen2517 Wasn't Terhills built on a gravel pit? Like, back in the day decades ago the location was already not part of the nature reserve. And then after the gravel was depleted, they added the artificial lake you now see next to Terhills and Elaisa. The holiday park, afaik, was planned to be there from the start.
Well, here in Germany there is quite an area where a certain american billionaire has destroyed nature reservoires to build a car factory and the politics let him (thanks to legalized corruption called lobbyism). And now he is on the way destroying water reservoires to expand it, which our politics are happy to let him do too. If there were a castle in his way, he could bulldozer it away cause afterall we have more than enough castles here too.
@@dennisengelen2517 the park, lakes, hills & forest weren't even there 80 years ago. There's laterally nothing natural about Terhills, everything came to be because of the mining industry.
Belgium just has it all: stunning historical towns and cities, gorgeous nature (Ardennes), friendly non-arrogant people and delicious foods (waffles, fries, chocolates, beer,....)! It's the full package... and so underrated!
Correction ... Durbuy is still the smallest city in Belgium. And yes, we have laws against "visual polution", as they call it in certain cities/villages.
Hi Ryan, Dinant is absolutely amazing, and it's worth a whole weekend. You may as well want to check the city of Dinan, with almost the same spelling, in Brittany, France, that is a beautiful medieval walled city. Fun fact, Dinant and Dinan are twinned cities! 😋
Castles are not typically about king and queens but more about the local lord. You can find pretty much every type of castles in every corner of europe because every small city or village had its lord or any kind of local power. At these times, being able to defend the city was not an option, as raids and war between neigbouring powers was common.
Belgium does have some striking towns and cities. For history and architecture lovers, though, surely nowhere in the country can beat Brugge/Bruges. It's actually a town frozen in time, in the 1520s to be exact. That's when the rich wool trade suddenly ended after a storm closed the river with silt.
They are called wall to wall buildings, sometimes they share a wall but mostly they have two walls touching so you build them one after the other, it probably started with small houses and got "urbanized" as the city grew they built the houses one by one.
i was in Dinant 2 weeks ago, beautiful little town, went swimming in the river below Chateau Walzin, ate some fries and drank a Leffe ^^ In tiny Belgium there are 3000+ castles xD (including french-style chateaus and such though).
You don't need princes or kings to have a castle, it could just aswell be something like a land supervisor put in place by a higher up to take care of the land. Even my (now) 3000 inhabitant village used to have a citadel/castle but it got destroyed without any bits left.
About the row houses. They came to be by first plotting pieces of land which were bought and built on. So yes, those houses were all built separate from each other, but they often do share the support wall between them. In terms of ownership, they're all separate plots of land, usually individually owned, though it's not uncommon for someone to own multiple houses in a row and rent them out as houses or appartments. In Belgium, this is probably the most common type of house.
In old towns in Germany and Austria houses are often built wall to wall. However, since one of the main building materials was wood some towns have burnt down partially or entirely in the course of their history. As a consequence some towns have decided to prohibit using wood within the walls separating two houses in order to hinder fires spreading too easily. Depending on where such separating walls where placed a few houses could end up possessing no lateral walls at all. I think that's the origin of the term "fire wall", a wall to stop fire from spreading.
Dinant is super cute on the banks of the Meuse/Maas and the inside of the church in beautiful. Wallonia, the french speaking part of Belgium, is widely ignored by tourists though they have beautiful little villages and valleys, castles and other sites... Namur is pretty, La Roche en Ardenne, Huy, Durbuy, Boullion and many more.... my hometown is only 1 h from the Belgium border and exploring Belgium is easy. I travelled all over la Wallonie besides Tournai, that's missing. On top in Liège all french and belgian supermarkts with french and belgian brands and food is accessible... French cheese, French wine, French and Belgian pastries etc. les eclaires des tartes aux prunes etc. That's the big adavantage of living in the heart of Europe. You can easily go abroad and explore an other country, language, food, culture on a day trip at least from where I live, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and even France are easy to visit. When i'm in Berlin i explore Poland and the Czech Republik.
The thing is, the "Belgian Dream" isn't just owning a big house, it's building your own one. As in commissioning an architect and a developper to built you're place how you imagine it. Knowing that it makes a lot more sense why houses are so randomly build sometimes.
While América has those amazing big cities, that make you feel like you are just a grain of sand in it, each city in Europe make you feel the history behind each city.
Hello everyone, I live in belgium, 10 kilometers away from dinant near Ciney. Never thought i would see an american talk about it ... even less,be amazed by the place! i probably have gone blind to these things over time but for me dinant is just an another pretty town. Believe me, for us it is an "old people" town, it gets boring over time, it is small and there is nothing to do except walking, drinking a beer and visit the citadelle for the eleventh time. But i definitely understand as a tourist. The equation for the attractiveness of belgium is simple if you are curious: Plenty of WATER ->Easy crop and traderoutes=Good food ->deep valley= castles and high structures. ->A crazy amount of BREWERYS (it runs in the blood)= pubs and plenty of resting places humans love water, and in Belgium we sure are not short on that ! P.S: here is an answer to one of your question: Yes! you can buy a house and live in the middle of Dinant and quite easily too but why would you? And yes, suburbs are just an american/foreign thing, for an european, it is a very grimm concept.
There are about 3000 castles in the tiny country of Belgium. Belgium was (also) in the early days a centre of commerce. With a lot of people making good money.
There are two types of castle, a castle fort or a castle residence. English seam to have both as the same word. In Swedish its "slott" for a castle residence, and "borg" for a castle fort. For very early castle residence there was some type of fortification, but in late medieval time and during the renesanse (when most of the castle around now was built), residence was typically not fortified.. And while the king typically had a hand full up to dussin castle residence (and not uncommonly, every new king built a new residence, or two), there was also nobility. Typically most country during this period had 2-4 level of nobility. Where every level was in charge of typically a dozenor so in the level under them. The top level typically had huge castles. The level under had fairly big one. But the 3:rd and 4:rth (where that existed) castle was not much larger a large size villa. There was also a few fake castle built in 19 century. That is castle that was not built by nobility but typically industrialists. Those are in some cases absolutely enormous. The one at 5:13 is a fake castle. And how many castle there is in Europe... LOADS AND LOADS AND LOADS Just the municipality i live in have probobly around 20. Some of them just used as private housing. And the one that is not that large are not even that expensive. I saw one sold for under €100 000 a few years back. Quite a few of them is rebuilt as hotels, conference center or spas or something like that. A friend of my dad bought a castle just to live in. i was there visitant once and while it was a nice dwelling, it wasn´t that huge as one might thing when hearing about a castle.
A citadel is a fortification of an exposed place like the top of a hill or a cliff at a coast. An essential purpose can be seen in being an outlook and a point of advantage to fight against an attacking force from a dominating position. Some citadels were built to accommodate population living around the citadel. Hence many are equipped with a very deep well to keep the place independent from receiving water by other less defensible means. As a result, some citadels were never conquered by besieging them.
Small connected city buildings have different builders and owners. They have one wall in common property (party wall). Local laws and rules organize this. There are so many castle in Europe as Europe was a patchwork ot thousands of small states organized in kingdoms. And Europeans made thousands of local wars during centuries.
Greetings from Belgium 🇧🇪, not so far from Dinant. Couvin is even smaller, but also a cosy little town. We have more than 1000 beers in Belgium. Monks started brewing beer because water wasn’t safe to drink, so they brewed something that was fermented and safe to drink. Of course alcohol has other implications but one doesn’t immediately die from it…
Castles are not just for kings, queens, princes and princess. You have Marquess, count, earl etc… each one, depending on their titles and richness had their own castles.
The row houses are very popular in Belgium. Its has the same "rules" as a stand allone house 😅 Row houses are not always smaller then stand allone houses they are just narrower and deeper. The avarage row house is 150m2 or +-1600 sq ft. We also have allot of "belle etages" were the living room + toilet is on the first floor bedrooms and bath room on the second floor and more rooms on the third floor. The level floor has a hallway, toilet ,wash room and garage. they also have a balcony with stairs to enter the garden. I live in one 211m2 2270 sqft and its also in a row formation its cheaper for heating in the winter and u have a nice talk with the neigbours. Avarage row house cost around 250.000-300.000€ Belle-etage 300.000-450.000 € Stand allone house 350.000-550.000€ Appartment 200.000-300.000€ Ow yeah and the avarage rent fornan appartment is 800€ a month. And for a house ( doesnt matter what kind) 1000-1400€ a month Prices vary allot in what area the prices i just gave are in flanders ( antwerp) not the core city prices are a bit higher there
Castle is different from a Palace and a lot of people (even native English speakers) are not aware of the difference and use the word interchangeably. How are there so many castles, palaces and such old buildings in Europe ... well like every place where civilization thrived, and buildings were done from stone - they last.
and average us Citizen don't get this because theirs house are make from cardboard and are easy to fall , and them don't have castles because USA are much younger country than for example Poland or in this case a Belgium so if a country are old as hell then they have manny historical events and historical places that are build in stone and they last in decades or not if a war happen and many places are destroyed (example Poland after ww2 lost many historical Places and had to rebuild them from scratch and so far in Poland the topic of "war reparations from the Germans" is being pulled out as a smokescreen before the elections.
@@BlackDragon95912 Every place have 'history', but native American in the north didn't build with stone as they were nomadic. In the South however - plenty of ancient buildings.
I would appreciate if you could check the beautiful tiny country „Luxembourg“ in the heart of Europe. There is a lot to discover and it has a big number of castles 😃 The country only has 660.000 habitants, 81 km from the north to the south and 55 km from east to west. And no, not only millionairs live here 😅😂
The vast majority of the U.S. population lives in fairly flat areas which allows cities to easily spread out. Europe has more narrow-ish river valleys which constrained the horizontal spread of cities somewhat (of course there are other reasons like enclosed city walls or zoning laws nowadays). Or at least it gives the impression of cities being small because you cannot see the full city while being down in The Valley. And there are plenty of European cities in flat areas that are spread out and look large.
Those wall touching buildings all have different owners and people living in them. They are just houses and the people who live there usually don’t rent them but own them.
Look up the Paradors in Spain. They are a government run hotel chain that have taken old buildings like monasteries, castles etc and converted them. They are mostly very beautiful and some during the renovations found roman remains which have also been carefully preserved. That said they have also built some new Paradors most of them near historical areas and certainly beautiful views
1:29 "or anywhere" - most American thing you can say :D There are tons of beautifull churches in European main cities. Paris, Rome, Moscow, Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Barcelona, Florence, Venetia, Constantinopole - just to name a few of those cities with churches stunning MUCH more than this one in Belgium.
To be fair this particular city most likely looks magical to many Europeans too. The reason they build it this way was influenced by the long history, how economies used to work over the millenia. Today nobody would build like that. But a thousand years ago it made sense. Now it is only beautiful. It's the same in other very old cities too, like Sanaa in Yemen for example.
If the author wonders how many castles there are in Europe, I assume that there are thousands. In Poland alone, where I come from, there are about 400 castles and about 2,000 historic palaces. Some of them are of course ruins and some are private so not all of them can be visited.
Castle/Palace hunting is definitely a favorite European sport, lol. So many of them, way over 50 000... Between the "protection first" medieval fortresses, the "make stone come to life" gothic style, the Renaissance castles, the more recent "showcase my power" classical style, & the "last huurah" castles of the more recent centuries (before we started building ugly crap not meant to last), & so much more, you have so much to choose from... & I didn't even mention anything ancient because that's it's own super category covering centuries & civilizations almost...
Citadel is not just a fortress. A citadel is a part of a city that is more fortified than the rest of the city. So its not a fortress like a military structure, but rather a part of town that is heavily fortified. Typically a city that have a citadel also have a city wall around the whole city. The citadel is then typically the second line of defence. Then inside of the citadel there may be a foritfied town that it self is the true fortress. So its basically the part between the city wall and the fortress.
pretty much looks like this in a lot of ireland too. just with much more green fields with sometimes 6000 year old tombs and ruins, instead of a cool mountain citadels and castles haha. I imainge people dont need to live in Dinant since a train service runs through it they can visit on the weekend and live in a larger city during the week etc.
Belgium counts about 3000 castles on a total land surface of a little more than 30.000 square kilometers, or on average 1 castle for every 10 square kilometers. What they define as a castle I don't know :)
Regarding what you asked about buildings, and taking into account this answer is just a general rule of thumb and not a universal statement for the whole continent: - yes, normally a different group of people erects each building at a different moment in time. How it works? well, verticality is the same for everyone, and it's actually one of the easiest and first things we learnt to do, thanks to the the plumb bob. You just make sure your building is well built and doesn't need to rest in the house next to it, so you can take it off without any structural problem to the buildings to either side. It's even normal to see, in not so old areas where buildings are not protected because of their cultural and aesthetical value, how an old building is put down and the place prepared for building a new one. - "connecting" the buildings is just a matter of filling the space (if any) between them, and maybe, especially in newer edifications, using some kind of insulating material like foams. Other than that, the only connections between adjacent buildings are just the cables running in the front wall (if any), which are obviously just screwed to them to avoid having too many posts in the street (this is not a norm at all, just something that happens in lots of areas, others don't have cables running along the front walls and either have them in posts or underground). - although it can happen that a single person or entity owns several buildings, normally not even one person owns a whole building. What usually happens is aparments (especially in those old buildings) are inherited, sold, passed on, and either inhabited by the owner or rented to a third party. Normally real estate companies focus on investing in land so they can profit off new buildings (normally selling all the apartments for profit) or in owning buildings aimed at big tenants (like companies that rent a whole building to be their office), but that happens mostly in more modern areas.
5:08 Why there were so many castles? It is simple: Castles are not homes for dukes and princes. Those are called palaces. Castles are medieval police stations and military bases. And there are some castles/citadelles in USA, one I know about is the West Point on the Hudson River.
Hi Ryan 👍🏼 A CITADEL is a mini city there all in the city run to when enemy attacking towns..its everything as people need from a town for survive long time and very hard for enemy to get inside...i think they only exist in Europe so it's not strange that you don't know CITADELS is ...❤️🇸🇪❤️🇺🇲❤️🇸🇪
Fun fact: Belgium has the most castles per square meter in the world. And we are proud of it ❤ but the "why this is" is less happy. Belgium is called the battlefield of Europe, most battles in Europe happened here.
It may surprise you but since the EC for Coal and Steel was formed in 1952 (later becoming th EEC/EU) there hasn't been a major war between European countries for almost 70 years until Russia invaded Ukraine. That's the longest period that Europe has been without any war since the Romans times.
Not Indiana.... Well there is a link! Adolf Sax was from Dinant, but all the major US saxophone factories were in Elkhart, Indiana: Conn, Martin, Selma USA, Beuscher....
We not only had emperors, kings & princes in Europe. But also lower nobility, like: Dukes, counts, margraves & barons. These guys ruled smaller parts of the realm, in name of the king or emperor. That way they could better enforce their rule over certain areas. And yes, they also had castles & palaces.
Don't think of all of those castles as the homes of the nobility but rather as military installations. However, if one's pockets are deep, any given castle could be both (like that one castle that was described as being able to control the river traffic below it).
13000 inhabitants is not tiny for a city, it also includes villages around. Some cities in Belgium have less than 1000 inhabitants, depending what you include.
Go check out also Switzerland the small, beautiful, mountainous country just in the boarder Southwestern, Germany (Baden-Württemberg). The reason why there are many castles in Europe because it was ruled by the Kings and Queens way back many centuries then.
Every building is built against the other one or sharing a "party wall" with the next building. If these buildings are from different owners this party wall has two owners. Special laws regulate things as what this means and can be different with the country you are in. In an apartment building the building can have several apartments owned by different owners. Typical those apartments have part walls and ceilings and/of floors. In the Netherlands it is mandatory by law to have an owners association for the proper maintenance of the building.
The way the construction of rowhouses worked is that somebody had a plot, and had build house with walls at the very border of that lot and then somebody else had it next to them and they as well build their wall at the very border of their plot and so on. I think there are some citadels or at least star fortresses in the USA. But I doubt that they can compare to those of Europe, they certainly can't compare to city fortresses of Europe.
castles were seat of power for the local power holders (like US town hall?) generational ones at that since the power holders were not elected. They also are fortification to control the land or, the passage: a bridge, the rivers traffic etc etc
I lived in Dinant between 2010 and 2015, to be honest the city itself have nothing in particular but there are nice things and places to see in the area, but everything depend what kind of things you like to see and what you don't.
Don't think too much of a castle. They are quite impressive as building, often build in several stages over the centuries, but often they just housed a lower noble with a dozen armed horsemen to control an area with only a few thousand people. Population has grown hugely since the castle era. It's a bit like "How many City Hall's are there? ", or "How many police offices are there?". They didn't have nation states with borders and a standing army to protect those.
4:52 so different sites claim different numbers of castles and chateaux in europe But what is certain is that in Wales has the densest amount of castles in it's small territory numbering 600 in total. Germany has around 25 000 castles, chateaux and ruins. Czechia has more than 2000 castles and chateaux. Spain has now 2 500 castles and chateaux, plus around 7500 ruins. Issue with getting an exact number lays in what is and what already isn't considered a castle. In one country a mere keep ( big chunky tower ) can be called a castle, while in another country almost the same looking place will only be a fort.
Most tourists from abroad go to cities like Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, which are very beautiful big cities. For me personally I prefer to go to cities under 40k inhabitants such as Dinant , Bouillon , Tongeren , Nieuwpoort , Borgloon , Durbuy , ...
We do have billboard etc. its just that EU has a law there says it has to be aesthetic and fit into the architecture of the area. and a modern billboard really dont fit into that, so you see them more in modern area or highways, but in most highway you dont see them either as they dont have an aesthetic appear with nature in general.
I know you've said that you don't read ANY of the comments but I have to point out that there's at least one Citadel in the USA. The Military College of South Carolina, founded in 1842 in Charleston, is known as 'The Citadel'.
It's quite an ordinary church for us 😅 Black in the dans, The Church had a lot of money, power and influence, churches were built everywhere, even in my small 350 inhabitants village (200 in the XVII century) , we have a church with columns , stone bows on the ceiling, stained glass, statues...and every village around has their own church. And i'm not talking about villages that are far one from each other, there are 5 villages in a 5kilometers range
I'm not sure how it works in Europe but in Scotland in medieval times a cathedral was what categorised a city not size. For example St Andrews used to be classed as a city whereas now it's classed as a town.
During 30-years-war (1618-1648) in Europe every soldier have daily provisions of 300 g of bread, 250 g of meat and 2L of beer! :) That was a time when beer industry florished and many breweries from early 17. century still stand and work till today. Belgians were also in that war, obviously :D
in belgium you pay tax on advertisement , like billboards and signs and dont think its allowed in a historical city center or at least strict laws around it
2:00 the idea of gothic wasn't to do intricate, it was to have both the highest ceiling while letting the light in as much as possible. This in order to make the worshipper feel both tiny-tiny when going in the house of God, but also that the sky (heaven) was still in there too... Back then, the solution they found - without steel and concrete - was to make it intricate. So, that's why.
Youve heard of count Dracula right? Well, he lived in a castle and he wasnt a king or a prince. Lots of noble people lived in castles. Furthermore Kings and Queens tend to have more than one castle each. Queen Elizabeth had several ,owned by the crown plus two that she privately owned . She also had residences that were not castles , some of which are not in the UK.
some buildings or sometimes entire areas are protected by law. Owning thise immobiles comes with certain responsibilities regarding maintenance and appropriate preservation and appearance. But i believe as an owner you also benefit from some extra subventions to attract private owners despite those strict rules.
Yes, each building may be made by different builders. You build one wall connected to one of the exterior walls of the other building (you have to use insulation and all that of course). It's a building so it's on the verge of it's land so the next building is too, they separate lands but connect on the wall. Then a lot of times those are apartments and you pay your rent or purchase the place. They are not owned by one person, at most they may be owned by the city 😂 It's so interesting to hear your doubts since I never thought about them. 😊 Love the internet for the possibility to share these questions and knowledge here and there. 😊
It's not just about the alcohol in the beer. Beer can only be made from clean and fresh water. Beer from water with bacteria will simply go bad. Already the ancient Egyptians noticed that it is safer to drink beer than water from the Nile. For this reason, it was safer to drink beer than water from an unknown source.
Back in the day a city of 20k ppl was considered big. Dinant just hasn’t grown since then, probably because of being in a valley. The term ‘city’ used to be a formal title, it wasn’t just due to size. Just like the aristocracy, really. The Hague in the NL never got city rights, so at over half a million inhabitants it’s actually a village. Town at most. And gets teased about it sometimes
5:04 The castles were not only homes of kings. It was a needed protection. Built on high places, they were usually fortresses protecting the town, the danger could be seen from distance and the villagers could run and hide there too. Some of the castles/fortresses were built on borders or on big commercial routes, protecting them. Also, at least in Slovakia, the castles were built close enough to see at least one other in the distance, so they could signal to each other when there was danger. Later (since like 16th century) more castles were built to protect the country from Ottomans/Turks.
Only in the last centuries the castles were not needed as much for protection and some of them were rebuilt to be more comfortable to live in and not just cold stone. There were also new castles built not on the hills anymore, but in the towns or cities, where the noble people lived.
Most of the castles had numerous owners in the history, numerous noble families, they belonged to the kings, but they often gave them to their noble men to live there etc. The oldest castle in Slovakia, Devín, was built in the 7th century by our Slavic/Old Slovak ancestors, but people lived on that hill long time before, even in prehistoric times.
Why should we destroy a beautiful landscape or a beautiful city with ugly billboards? I hope we never will become that crazy in Europe.
It's already like that, even here in Belgium they destroy ecosystems to put a big ass center parks with a big ass spa (terhills resort Maasmechelen). But it's okay because they plant new trees they think. 🤦🏻♂️
@@dennisengelen2517 Wasn't Terhills built on a gravel pit? Like, back in the day decades ago the location was already not part of the nature reserve. And then after the gravel was depleted, they added the artificial lake you now see next to Terhills and Elaisa. The holiday park, afaik, was planned to be there from the start.
@@Just_another_Euro_dude Sad! 😔
Well, here in Germany there is quite an area where a certain american billionaire has destroyed nature reservoires to build a car factory and the politics let him (thanks to legalized corruption called lobbyism). And now he is on the way destroying water reservoires to expand it, which our politics are happy to let him do too. If there were a castle in his way, he could bulldozer it away cause afterall we have more than enough castles here too.
@@dennisengelen2517 the park, lakes, hills & forest weren't even there 80 years ago. There's laterally nothing natural about Terhills, everything came to be because of the mining industry.
Belgium just has it all: stunning historical towns and cities, gorgeous nature (Ardennes), friendly non-arrogant people and delicious foods (waffles, fries, chocolates, beer,....)! It's the full package... and so underrated!
"friendly non-arrogant people" I feel there's a hidden tackle to French people 😂
@@R0ckRoots 😜👍
Nah, French isn't important in the cities that matter.
hhmmmm people from Antwerp are a bit arrogant tho
@@irissupercoolsydo you live in Antwerp?
Correction ... Durbuy is still the smallest city in Belgium. And yes, we have laws against "visual polution", as they call it in certain cities/villages.
we do indeed have laws about advertising things on buildings, especially buildings of ANY historical value.
Hi Ryan, Dinant is absolutely amazing, and it's worth a whole weekend. You may as well want to check the city of Dinan, with almost the same spelling, in Brittany, France, that is a beautiful medieval walled city. Fun fact, Dinant and Dinan are twinned cities! 😋
In my oppinion , as a Belgian, Dinan is a lot better than Dinant . But Dinant was destroyed many times and that must be the explanation.
Proud to be a Belgian❤!!!!
Castles are not typically about king and queens but more about the local lord. You can find pretty much every type of castles in every corner of europe because every small city or village had its lord or any kind of local power. At these times, being able to defend the city was not an option, as raids and war between neigbouring powers was common.
Belgium does have some striking towns and cities. For history and architecture lovers, though, surely nowhere in the country can beat Brugge/Bruges. It's actually a town frozen in time, in the 1520s to be exact. That's when the rich wool trade suddenly ended after a storm closed the river with silt.
I've been in Brugge last february and it was very beautiful 😊
So the decline of a city is a gift to the arts interest of latter generations.
nah, Ghent beats Bruges/Bruhhe
Belgium is a tiny country packed with interesting things to discover. Bruges is one of my most favourite places to visit
Belgium is a tiny country full of tiny cities and tiny people 😀
Colin Farrell would disagree 😅
@@samelmudir That was a good movie. Maybe leave the children at home or keep them very close on the trip.
@@samelmudirJust don't shoot any midgets after a coke bender..
@@Pidalin with tiny pps
They are called wall to wall buildings, sometimes they share a wall but mostly they have two walls touching so you build them one after the other, it probably started with small houses and got "urbanized" as the city grew they built the houses one by one.
In the U K we call.them terraced houses.
i was in Dinant 2 weeks ago, beautiful little town, went swimming in the river below Chateau Walzin, ate some fries and drank a Leffe ^^ In tiny Belgium there are 3000+ castles xD (including french-style chateaus and such though).
You don't need princes or kings to have a castle, it could just aswell be something like a land supervisor put in place by a higher up to take care of the land. Even my (now) 3000 inhabitant village used to have a citadel/castle but it got destroyed without any bits left.
About the row houses. They came to be by first plotting pieces of land which were bought and built on. So yes, those houses were all built separate from each other, but they often do share the support wall between them. In terms of ownership, they're all separate plots of land, usually individually owned, though it's not uncommon for someone to own multiple houses in a row and rent them out as houses or appartments.
In Belgium, this is probably the most common type of house.
In old towns in Germany and Austria houses are often built wall to wall. However, since one of the main building materials was wood some towns have burnt down partially or entirely in the course of their history. As a consequence some towns have decided to prohibit using wood within the walls separating two houses in order to hinder fires spreading too easily. Depending on where such separating walls where placed a few houses could end up possessing no lateral walls at all. I think that's the origin of the term "fire wall", a wall to stop fire from spreading.
Dinant is super cute on the banks of the Meuse/Maas and the inside of the church in beautiful. Wallonia, the french speaking part of Belgium, is widely ignored by tourists though they have beautiful little villages and valleys, castles and other sites... Namur is pretty, La Roche en Ardenne, Huy, Durbuy, Boullion and many more.... my hometown is only 1 h from the Belgium border and exploring Belgium is easy. I travelled all over la Wallonie besides Tournai, that's missing. On top in Liège all french and belgian supermarkts with french and belgian brands and food is accessible... French cheese, French wine, French and Belgian pastries etc. les eclaires des tartes aux prunes etc. That's the big adavantage of living in the heart of Europe. You can easily go abroad and explore an other country, language, food, culture on a day trip at least from where I live, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and even France are easy to visit. When i'm in Berlin i explore Poland and the Czech Republik.
Belgium has so many more amazing things, it’s underrated when it comes to its nature
As someone who grew up near 'Nationaal park hoge Kempen' I concur!
Underrated not just nature. Food, beer, cities...
We belgians underrate ourselfs, except the people of Antwerp ;-)
@@lovepollypocket4576 So basically you would like 'Belgains' (whatever that may mean) to be more like people from Antwerp.
@@laziojohnny79 I'm born in Antwerp so why not 😁
The thing is, the "Belgian Dream" isn't just owning a big house, it's building your own one. As in commissioning an architect and a developper to built you're place how you imagine it. Knowing that it makes a lot more sense why houses are so randomly build sometimes.
2:11 the chairs are meant for both sitting and (reversed) kneeling.
While América has those amazing big cities, that make you feel like you are just a grain of sand in it, each city in Europe make you feel the history behind each city.
Europe has history and culture, America has Hollywood and Disney world
and Kardashians :D
@@TallisKeeton - You and the OP on this thread are as ignorant as Ryan is.
@@TallisKeetonand guns
@@Itsukazutrap lots of guns
@@offsetmonkey538And guns that kill people.
Some info: Belgium has the most castles per square meter in europe
Hello everyone,
I live in belgium, 10 kilometers away from dinant near Ciney. Never thought i would see an american talk about it ... even less,be amazed by the place!
i probably have gone blind to these things over time but for me dinant is just an another pretty town.
Believe me, for us it is an "old people" town, it gets boring over time, it is small and there is nothing to do except walking, drinking a beer and visit the citadelle for the eleventh time.
But i definitely understand as a tourist.
The equation for the attractiveness of belgium is simple if you are curious:
Plenty of WATER
->Easy crop and traderoutes=Good food
->deep valley= castles and high structures.
->A crazy amount of BREWERYS (it runs in the blood)= pubs and plenty of resting places
humans love water, and in Belgium we sure are not short on that !
P.S: here is an answer to one of your question: Yes! you can buy a house and live in the middle of Dinant and quite easily too but why would you?
And yes, suburbs are just an american/foreign thing, for an european, it is a very grimm concept.
So glad you discovered a town in my homecountry Belgium.
The U.S. does/did have fortresses, mainly in coastal areas and along rivers in the form of civil-war era brick forts.
Belgium is a gorgeous country, totally underrated.
Your smile as you were watching this says it all.
There are about 3000 castles in the tiny country of Belgium. Belgium was (also) in the early days a centre of commerce. With a lot of people making good money.
There are two types of castle, a castle fort or a castle residence. English seam to have both as the same word. In Swedish its "slott" for a castle residence, and "borg" for a castle fort. For very early castle residence there was some type of fortification, but in late medieval time and during the renesanse (when most of the castle around now was built), residence was typically not fortified..
And while the king typically had a hand full up to dussin castle residence (and not uncommonly, every new king built a new residence, or two), there was also nobility. Typically most country during this period had 2-4 level of nobility. Where every level was in charge of typically a dozenor so in the level under them. The top level typically had huge castles. The level under had fairly big one. But the 3:rd and 4:rth (where that existed) castle was not much larger a large size villa.
There was also a few fake castle built in 19 century. That is castle that was not built by nobility but typically industrialists. Those are in some cases absolutely enormous. The one at 5:13 is a fake castle.
And how many castle there is in Europe... LOADS AND LOADS AND LOADS Just the municipality i live in have probobly around 20. Some of them just used as private housing. And the one that is not that large are not even that expensive. I saw one sold for under €100 000 a few years back. Quite a few of them is rebuilt as hotels, conference center or spas or something like that.
A friend of my dad bought a castle just to live in. i was there visitant once and while it was a nice dwelling, it wasn´t that huge as one might thing when hearing about a castle.
A citadel is a fortification of an exposed place like the top of a hill or a cliff at a coast. An essential purpose can be seen in being an outlook and a point of advantage to fight against an attacking force from a dominating position. Some citadels were built to accommodate population living around the citadel. Hence many are equipped with a very deep well to keep the place independent from receiving water by other less defensible means. As a result, some citadels were never conquered by besieging them.
Small connected city buildings have different builders and owners. They have one wall in common property (party wall). Local laws and rules organize this.
There are so many castle in Europe as Europe was a patchwork ot thousands of small states organized in kingdoms. And Europeans made thousands of local wars during centuries.
Greetings from Belgium 🇧🇪, not so far from Dinant. Couvin is even smaller, but also a cosy little town. We have more than 1000 beers in Belgium. Monks started brewing beer because water wasn’t safe to drink, so they brewed something that was fermented and safe to drink. Of course alcohol has other implications but one doesn’t immediately die from it…
Castles are not just for kings, queens, princes and princess. You have Marquess, count, earl etc… each one, depending on their titles and richness had their own castles.
Btw u can find Leffe beer in USA and many others from Belgium. I bought some when I traveled few times in your country
The row houses are very popular in Belgium. Its has the same "rules" as a stand allone house 😅
Row houses are not always smaller then stand allone houses they are just narrower and deeper. The avarage row house is 150m2 or +-1600 sq ft.
We also have allot of "belle etages" were the living room + toilet is on the first floor bedrooms and bath room on the second floor and more rooms on the third floor. The level floor has a hallway, toilet ,wash room and garage. they also have a balcony with stairs to enter the garden. I live in one 211m2 2270 sqft and its also in a row formation its cheaper for heating in the winter and u have a nice talk with the neigbours.
Avarage row house cost around 250.000-300.000€
Belle-etage 300.000-450.000 €
Stand allone house 350.000-550.000€
Appartment 200.000-300.000€
Ow yeah and the avarage rent fornan appartment is 800€ a month.
And for a house ( doesnt matter what kind) 1000-1400€ a month
Prices vary allot in what area the prices i just gave are in flanders ( antwerp) not the core city prices are a bit higher there
glad you are taking a look at belgium , have look at our political structure , its crazy :D
Castle is different from a Palace and a lot of people (even native English speakers) are not aware of the difference and use the word interchangeably.
How are there so many castles, palaces and such old buildings in Europe ... well like every place where civilization thrived, and buildings were done from stone - they last.
and average us Citizen don't get this because theirs house are make from cardboard and are easy to fall , and them don't have castles because USA are much younger country than for example Poland or in this case a Belgium so if a country are old as hell then they have manny historical events and historical places that are build in stone and they last in decades or not if a war happen and many places are destroyed (example Poland after ww2 lost many historical Places and had to rebuild them from scratch and so far in Poland the topic of "war reparations from the Germans" is being pulled out as a smokescreen before the elections.
@@BlackDragon95912 Every place have 'history', but native American in the north didn't build with stone as they were nomadic. In the South however - plenty of ancient buildings.
I would appreciate if you could check the beautiful tiny country „Luxembourg“ in the heart of Europe. There is a lot to discover and it has a big number of castles 😃 The country only has 660.000 habitants, 81 km from the north to the south and 55 km from east to west. And no, not only millionairs live here 😅😂
The vast majority of the U.S. population lives in fairly flat areas which allows cities to easily spread out. Europe has more narrow-ish river valleys which constrained the horizontal spread of cities somewhat (of course there are other reasons like enclosed city walls or zoning laws nowadays). Or at least it gives the impression of cities being small because you cannot see the full city while being down in The Valley. And there are plenty of European cities in flat areas that are spread out and look large.
6:44 That is a myth. People drank water, although travel guides did recommend beer or wine if no potable water you could be sure of was to be found.
Those wall touching buildings all have different owners and people living in them. They are just houses and the people who live there usually don’t rent them but own them.
Ryan, is not the sharpest tool in the Toolbox. 🤣 He knows, very little about European History and culture... 😱🤔
Hello, in Dinant, there is a great museum on pataphony.
Best thing is they've got leffe probably from the tap too.
Look up the Paradors in Spain. They are a government run hotel chain that have taken old buildings like monasteries, castles etc and converted them. They are mostly very beautiful and some during the renovations found roman remains which have also been carefully preserved. That said they have also built some new Paradors most of them near historical areas and certainly beautiful views
You literally gave the definition: A citadel is a castle overlooking the city.
Sometimes you're smarter than you think.
1:29 "or anywhere" - most American thing you can say :D
There are tons of beautifull churches in European main cities.
Paris, Rome, Moscow, Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Barcelona, Florence, Venetia, Constantinopole - just to name a few of those cities with churches stunning MUCH more than this one in Belgium.
To be fair this particular city most likely looks magical to many Europeans too. The reason they build it this way was influenced by the long history, how economies used to work over the millenia. Today nobody would build like that. But a thousand years ago it made sense. Now it is only beautiful. It's the same in other very old cities too, like Sanaa in Yemen for example.
If the author wonders how many castles there are in Europe, I assume that there are thousands. In Poland alone, where I come from, there are about 400 castles and about 2,000 historic palaces. Some of them are of course ruins and some are private so not all of them can be visited.
Castle/Palace hunting is definitely a favorite European sport, lol. So many of them, way over 50 000... Between the "protection first" medieval fortresses, the "make stone come to life" gothic style, the Renaissance castles, the more recent "showcase my power" classical style, & the "last huurah" castles of the more recent centuries (before we started building ugly crap not meant to last), & so much more, you have so much to choose from...
& I didn't even mention anything ancient because that's it's own super category covering centuries & civilizations almost...
Went in April, did an overnight stay. You can do a day trip from Brussels, takes about 90 mins on the train...
There is a Leffe pub here in Helsinki. Love their beer! It is so smooth.
Citadel is not just a fortress. A citadel is a part of a city that is more fortified than the rest of the city. So its not a fortress like a military structure, but rather a part of town that is heavily fortified.
Typically a city that have a citadel also have a city wall around the whole city. The citadel is then typically the second line of defence.
Then inside of the citadel there may be a foritfied town that it self is the true fortress.
So its basically the part between the city wall and the fortress.
pretty much looks like this in a lot of ireland too. just with much more green fields with sometimes 6000 year old tombs and ruins, instead of a cool mountain citadels and castles haha. I imainge people dont need to live in Dinant since a train service runs through it they can visit on the weekend and live in a larger city during the week etc.
Belgium counts about 3000 castles on a total land surface of a little more than 30.000 square kilometers, or on average 1 castle for every 10 square kilometers. What they define as a castle I don't know :)
Regarding what you asked about buildings, and taking into account this answer is just a general rule of thumb and not a universal statement for the whole continent:
- yes, normally a different group of people erects each building at a different moment in time. How it works? well, verticality is the same for everyone, and it's actually one of the easiest and first things we learnt to do, thanks to the the plumb bob. You just make sure your building is well built and doesn't need to rest in the house next to it, so you can take it off without any structural problem to the buildings to either side. It's even normal to see, in not so old areas where buildings are not protected because of their cultural and aesthetical value, how an old building is put down and the place prepared for building a new one.
- "connecting" the buildings is just a matter of filling the space (if any) between them, and maybe, especially in newer edifications, using some kind of insulating material like foams. Other than that, the only connections between adjacent buildings are just the cables running in the front wall (if any), which are obviously just screwed to them to avoid having too many posts in the street (this is not a norm at all, just something that happens in lots of areas, others don't have cables running along the front walls and either have them in posts or underground).
- although it can happen that a single person or entity owns several buildings, normally not even one person owns a whole building. What usually happens is aparments (especially in those old buildings) are inherited, sold, passed on, and either inhabited by the owner or rented to a third party. Normally real estate companies focus on investing in land so they can profit off new buildings (normally selling all the apartments for profit) or in owning buildings aimed at big tenants (like companies that rent a whole building to be their office), but that happens mostly in more modern areas.
5:08 Why there were so many castles? It is simple:
Castles are not homes for dukes and princes. Those are called palaces. Castles are medieval police stations and military bases.
And there are some castles/citadelles in USA, one I know about is the West Point on the Hudson River.
In castles and palaces don't live only kings or princess.
But every lord or other noble families.
Hi Ryan 👍🏼 A CITADEL is a mini city there all in the city run to when enemy attacking towns..its everything as people need from a town for survive long time and very hard for enemy to get inside...i think they only exist in Europe so it's not strange that you don't know CITADELS is ...❤️🇸🇪❤️🇺🇲❤️🇸🇪
Fun fact: Belgium has the most castles per square meter in the world. And we are proud of it ❤ but the "why this is" is less happy. Belgium is called the battlefield of Europe, most battles in Europe happened here.
A citadel is a castle or fortification in or near a city, protecting the city. Origin latin: civitas (city). Cheers from Belgium 😊
It may surprise you but since the EC for Coal and Steel was formed in 1952 (later becoming th EEC/EU) there hasn't been a major war between European countries for almost 70 years until Russia invaded Ukraine. That's the longest period that Europe has been without any war since the Romans times.
Castles were their era's military bases; they were primarily defensive fortifications.
Not Indiana.... Well there is a link! Adolf Sax was from Dinant, but all the major US saxophone factories were in Elkhart, Indiana: Conn, Martin, Selma USA, Beuscher....
We not only had emperors, kings & princes in Europe. But also lower nobility, like: Dukes, counts, margraves & barons. These guys ruled smaller parts of the realm, in name of the king or emperor. That way they could better enforce their rule over certain areas. And yes, they also had castles & palaces.
We have more than 3000 castles in Belgium… with the majority open for public :-)
Don't think of all of those castles as the homes of the nobility but rather as military installations. However, if one's pockets are deep, any given castle could be both (like that one castle that was described as being able to control the river traffic below it).
Beer was/is safer to drink as water because it has to boil before it starts to ferment.
My favorite is Kilkenny, Ireland. Two great breweries 😂 love Leffe btw ❤
Thanks Ryan, your commenting always puts me in a good mood! 😄
Thanks for showing my country :)
13000 inhabitants is not tiny for a city, it also includes villages around. Some cities in Belgium have less than 1000 inhabitants, depending what you include.
"It looks like Disney" Everything outside USA looks like Disney according to many Americans 😮.
Unbelievable 😱
Disney tried to look like a dreamish resumé of old Europe.
OMG you reacting to my countries beautifull cities !!!!🥰
Go check out also Switzerland the small, beautiful, mountainous country just in the boarder Southwestern, Germany (Baden-Württemberg). The reason why there are many castles in Europe because it was ruled by the Kings and Queens way back many centuries then.
Every building is built against the other one or sharing a "party wall" with the next building. If these buildings are from different owners this party wall has two owners. Special laws regulate things as what this means and can be different with the country you are in. In an apartment building the building can have several apartments owned by different owners. Typical those apartments have part walls and ceilings and/of floors. In the Netherlands it is mandatory by law to have an owners association for the proper maintenance of the building.
An owners association is mandatory when a house is split into apartments, but not when you just share a wall.
@@jbird4478 Yes, I ment with apartment buildings exactly what you said: a house split into apartments. Maybe I was not so precise.
The way the construction of rowhouses worked is that somebody had a plot, and had build house with walls at the very border of that lot and then somebody else had it next to them and they as well build their wall at the very border of their plot and so on.
I think there are some citadels or at least star fortresses in the USA. But I doubt that they can compare to those of Europe, they certainly can't compare to city fortresses of Europe.
...and -Yes! America have a citadel btw . Fort St. George in Halifax!
castles were seat of power for the local power holders (like US town hall?)
generational ones at that since the power holders were not elected.
They also are fortification to control the land or, the passage: a bridge, the rivers traffic etc etc
I lived in Dinant between 2010 and 2015, to be honest the city itself have nothing in particular but there are nice things and places to see in the area, but everything depend what kind of things you like to see and what you don't.
Yes! Belgium! Finally 😊 Next up: Ghent? If you visit, I gladly show you around.
Don't think too much of a castle. They are quite impressive as building, often build in several stages over the centuries, but often they just housed a lower noble with a dozen armed horsemen to control an area with only a few thousand people. Population has grown hugely since the castle era. It's a bit like "How many City Hall's are there? ", or "How many police offices are there?". They didn't have nation states with borders and a standing army to protect those.
You´ve had a lot of Forts. You can call them Citadelle as well
4:52 so different sites claim different numbers of castles and chateaux in europe
But what is certain is that in Wales has the densest amount of castles in it's small territory numbering 600 in total. Germany has around 25 000 castles, chateaux and ruins. Czechia has more than 2000 castles and chateaux. Spain has now 2 500 castles and chateaux, plus around 7500 ruins.
Issue with getting an exact number lays in what is and what already isn't considered a castle. In one country a mere keep ( big chunky tower ) can be called a castle, while in another country almost the same looking place will only be a fort.
Most tourists from abroad go to cities like Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, which are very beautiful big cities. For me personally I prefer to go to cities under 40k inhabitants such as Dinant , Bouillon , Tongeren , Nieuwpoort , Borgloon , Durbuy , ...
We do have billboard etc. its just that EU has a law there says it has to be aesthetic and fit into the architecture of the area. and a modern billboard really dont fit into that, so you see them more in modern area or highways, but in most highway you dont see them either as they dont have an aesthetic appear with nature in general.
I know you've said that you don't read ANY of the comments but I have to point out that there's at least one Citadel in the USA. The Military College of South Carolina, founded in 1842 in Charleston, is known as 'The Citadel'.
Belgium has a total of no fewer than 3000 castles, which makes it the world record for the largest number of castles per square metre.
The beer is born in Belgium. They've the best beers in the world.
It's quite an ordinary church for us 😅
Black in the dans, The Church had a lot of money, power and influence, churches were built everywhere, even in my small 350 inhabitants village (200 in the XVII century) , we have a church with columns , stone bows on the ceiling, stained glass, statues...and every village around has their own church. And i'm not talking about villages that are far one from each other, there are 5 villages in a 5kilometers range
I'm not sure how it works in Europe but in Scotland in medieval times a cathedral was what categorised a city not size.
For example St Andrews used to be classed as a city whereas now it's classed as a town.
In Europe, there are many castles - in France alone, there are over 45,000. In comparison, the country has around 35,000 communes.
During 30-years-war (1618-1648) in Europe every soldier have daily provisions of 300 g of bread, 250 g of meat and 2L of beer! :) That was a time when beer industry florished and many breweries from early 17. century still stand and work till today. Belgians were also in that war, obviously :D
in belgium you pay tax on advertisement , like billboards and signs and dont think its allowed in a historical city center or at least strict laws around it
2:00 the idea of gothic wasn't to do intricate, it was to have both the highest ceiling while letting the light in as much as possible. This in order to make the worshipper feel both tiny-tiny when going in the house of God, but also that the sky (heaven) was still in there too...
Back then, the solution they found - without steel and concrete - was to make it intricate. So, that's why.
Youve heard of count Dracula right? Well, he lived in a castle and he wasnt a king or a prince. Lots of noble people lived in castles. Furthermore Kings and Queens tend to have more than one castle each. Queen Elizabeth had several ,owned by the crown plus two that she privately owned . She also had residences that were not castles , some of which are not in the UK.
some buildings or sometimes entire areas are protected by law. Owning thise immobiles comes with certain responsibilities regarding maintenance and appropriate preservation and appearance. But i believe as an owner you also benefit from some extra subventions to attract private owners despite those strict rules.
Yes, each building may be made by different builders. You build one wall connected to one of the exterior walls of the other building (you have to use insulation and all that of course). It's a building so it's on the verge of it's land so the next building is too, they separate lands but connect on the wall. Then a lot of times those are apartments and you pay your rent or purchase the place. They are not owned by one person, at most they may be owned by the city 😂 It's so interesting to hear your doubts since I never thought about them. 😊 Love the internet for the possibility to share these questions and knowledge here and there. 😊
*they are separate lands
It's not just about the alcohol in the beer. Beer can only be made from clean and fresh water. Beer from water with bacteria will simply go bad. Already the ancient Egyptians noticed that it is safer to drink beer than water from the Nile. For this reason, it was safer to drink beer than water from an unknown source.
These Castles were not only owned by Kings or Queens...sometimes it was just a rich Lords ect..over an area they ruled or wealthy Knights.
Back in the day a city of 20k ppl was considered big. Dinant just hasn’t grown since then, probably because of being in a valley.
The term ‘city’ used to be a formal title, it wasn’t just due to size. Just like the aristocracy, really. The Hague in the NL never got city rights, so at over half a million inhabitants it’s actually a village. Town at most. And gets teased about it sometimes
There are over 10.000 medieval castles or ruins in Europe.