Predjama Castle was built along 123 meters of rock face in 1202.
It is located a few kilometers from Postojna Cave, near the Italian-Slovenian border and is considered the only fully preserved cave castle in Europe.
Subsequently renovated in 1274 by the abbots of Aquileia, some elements were added in the twelfth century as well. Its current appearance dates back to 1583.
Among the rooms that can be visited are the armory, the knights’ room, the torture room, the dining room and the hunting trophy room of Prince Windischgrätz, the last owner of the castle.
In the fifteenth century the castle became the property of the Luegg family.
The most famous representative of the ancient family is the brigand knight Erazem Predjamski, a sort of Slovenian Robin Hood.
The privileged victims were the merchants who crossed the area on their way from Trieste to Vienna.
Over time the raids became more and more ferocious and frequent, so much so that the Austrian Emperor Frederick III in 1483 gave the order to besiege the castle.
However, things took an unpredictable turn: the inhabitants of the fortress did not seem at all tried by the long siege.
In the end, the turning point came from a cowardly betrayal. In fact, it seems that a servant of Erazem had revealed to the besiegers the only weak point of the manor. So it was that after a siege that lasted (according to legend) a year and a day, the traitor put a signal on the window at the moment when Erazem retired to the room. Here he was hit by a cannonball and died instantly.
