Roveň

Houska Castle

A Gothic castle in Bohemia, built in the thirteenth century in a place with no water, no roads and no population — that is, with no military or economic purpose at all. Legend explains it by the chapel standing directly over a chasm held to be an entrance to hell: a condemned man was promised his freedom for going down, came back white-haired and died within days. The castle is fortified as though against something inside rather than out.