r/interestingasfuck • u/The_Love-Tap • 22h ago

Germany has more castles than the United States has McDonald’s. This is the Eltz castle, located in Wiershem. It has been owned and occupied by the same family for 33 generations over 800 years

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u/NumeroRyan 21h ago

What’s interesting is Wales has more castles per square mile than anywhere else in Europe

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u/TheDeltaOne 21h ago

Spent last summer hiking through Wales. Castle galore. It was amazing.

There's a castle (can't remember the name) that's near a river so you can just put your things inside the yard and go through a small tunnel and go for a swim.

We did something like 6 castles in the first day, just walking.

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u/Responsible-Summer81 7h ago

Were you doing thru-hiking/inn to inn hiking? Were you on any particular route you’d recommend?

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u/TheDeltaOne 4h ago edited 4h ago

We did a bit of inn to inn at the start and then we took a rental (and took a bus at some point) to go more inland, especially to go to something called the Three Castle Walk and to reach Brecon Beacons.

The first few days we started on the Wales Coast Path from Cardiff which is very beautiful and the app they made for it is very easy to use. The only problem for us was that it's a coastal path all the way through (and it was absolutely beautiful so it's a good path) but we really wanted to go on hikes in Brecon Beacons.

So, not a real hike-thru, a mix between that and Roadtrip lol.

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u/HauntedCemetery 19h ago

If you were stuck in the middle of England and Scotland brawling for 600 years you'd want a stone house too.

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u/Pyriel 21h ago

In the world.

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u/SuperCruisePanther 21h ago

According to who, Wales? 😅

What's their definition of a castle?

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u/Party-Coach-4100 17h ago

The UK is the most per sq ft in the world at a lot of things i.e. tornadoes and earthquakes. They add the sq ft thing and all the sudden the densely populated island is top everything by sq ft.

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u/apple_kicks 20h ago

Usually as form of occupation to house the military and control locals and land. Romans had this with forts and Normans did this after invading too. When Owain Glyndŵr rebelled he destroyed a few or attacked them to weaken control in the area from the other king

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u/the_vikm 20h ago

Ok but Wales in not an independent country. We can arbitrarily shrink the geographic unit to claim "this one has the most"

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u/Pyriel 19h ago

Wales may be part of the UK, but it's still an independent country, with it's own Government.

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u/the_vikm 19h ago

No, it's absolutely not an independent country. Unless you somehow don't know what independent means? In which case every federation consists of countries (UK isn't even one, so actually "worse")

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u/TheDeltaOne 19h ago

A constituent country is still regarded as a country.

It's part of a sovereign state made off of several countries.

You may not like it, or consider the definition to be stupid but it doesn't change the fact.

Now, you're right, it is not independent but it doesn't make it NOT a country. That's not how this works.

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u/the_vikm 19h ago edited 19h ago

Wales named country is no different than Germany's states, they're also called "country" but in German. In fact the states have more autonomy than Wales. The UK gov could pull the power any time, that's how it works with devolution.

It has nothing to do with whether I like that or not, I already said it's not an independent country. Constituent country doesn't have much meaning. You could easily look up the facts, or ask your llm

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u/TheDeltaOne 19h ago edited 19h ago

I'm not the same person that said it was independent, maybe learn to read. So, i'm not moving any goal post, I didn't put any, I'm just telling you you're wrong.

There are many other places with fucking constituent countries recognized internationally as such. I'm not making the rules, that's what it is.

So yeah "shrinking" it to that specific country makes sense when talking about castles when talking about castle per square mile in a country.

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u/the_vikm 19h ago

I'm not the same person that said it was independent, maybe learn to read.

I noticed and already edited. No need to insult people.

recognized internationally

And who would that be? Nobody recognizes the 3 UK "countries" as anything other than subdivisions (historically real countries).

So yeah "shrinking" it to that specific country makes sense when talking about castles when talking about castle per square mile in a country.

You ignored everything else I wrote, but why don't you look at any of the German states then for comparison?

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u/TheDeltaOne 19h ago

Because they're not countries.

Mate, you seem either really upset that Wales is the country with the most castle per square miles or that it's a country while german states are not but whatever it is won't make Wales not a country.

Country is enough of an illdefined word and the UK such a clusterfuck that Wales can be in the 6 Nations alongside like Italy but not in the UN and that's okay, it's not a big deal. I'm not gonna try and have this conversation because that's just how it is and you have a strong opinion on this, and that's your right, have fun with it.

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u/the_vikm 19h ago

Because they're not countries

Why not? Because English call their subdivisions countries but call German subdivisions something else even though they're called countries in German?

Mate, you seem either really upset that Wales is the country with the most castle per square miles

It's just inaccurate, Malta is the right answer. If you take subdivisions into account thuringia and others are ahead of Wales

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