Visited in 2021
Duration of visit : 17 hours*
Castello Neogotico
On a small island, this neo-gothic castle was built. An already present church and monastery were merged into the new build of which construction began in the 1880’s. It was a politician who built it as his summer residency and dedicated the castle to his wife.
The castle, whose territory occupies about 1/5th of the island, was very luxuriously furnished and housed numerous collections including art, weapons, coins and antiques.
In the 1990’s the property was completely abandoned. Some years later, in the 2000’s, a company bought the estate with big plans to turn the former residency into a star hotel.
The plans show a large hotel with more than 80 rooms for about 150 guests, a spa, gym and restaurant (just to name some of the many facilities). The project was estimated to cost several tens of millions and was one of the largest private funded restoration projects in Europe.
After several years the company went bankrupt, the project was abandoned and work never continued. Most of the rooms are left gutted and some areas are dangerous to walk (as you may expect from a construction site). Today the castle is home to a few families of bats, some fat toads and a lot of pigeons (which were nesting on the ground through the entire castle at the time of our visit).
*To get the full experience, we spent the night here. We slept among the bats and pigeons which were surprisingly quiet at night.
