314 CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE
For hotels and restaurants in this region see pp328–9 and pp330–31
The Castle Courtyards
are used in summer
to host medieval
tournaments and
falconry shows.Chapel
The chapel, with its stuccoed
and painted vault, was built
in the 17th cen tury, in a
former bastion.Pálffy’s Tomb
The chapel crypt
contains the impres-
sive Neo-Romanesque
marble sarcophagus of
the castle’s last owner,
Ján Pálffy.. Golden Hall
The hall’s spectacular vault,
made of pine and covered with
gold leaf, was modelled on the
interior of the Venetian
Academy of Fine Arts.
Music Room
The present Music
Room was once Count
Ján Pálffy’s bedroom.
It now houses a beautiful
piano made in
Vienna in 1884.Bojnice Castle 3
Zámok Bojnice
Originally built in the 12th century, the romantic
Bojnice Castle is one of Slovakia’s greatest attractions.
In the 13th cen tury, it passed into the hands of the
most powerful Hungarian warlord of the time, Matúš
Čák. In 1527, the Thurzo family con verted the castle
into a comfor table Renaissance residence and in
the 19th century, its last owner, Count Ján Pálffy,
remod el led it into a stately residence resem bling the
Gothic castles of France’s Loire Valley.