Fodor's Expert Review Castell Coch

Perched on a hillside is this fairy-tale castle, built on the site of a medieval stronghold in the 1870s, about the time that the "Fairy-Tale King" Ludwig II of Bavaria was creating his castles in the mountains of Germany. This turreted Victorian fantasy wouldn't look out of place among them. The castle was another collaboration of the third marquess of Bute and William Burges, who transformed Cardiff Castle. Burges created everything, including the whimsical furnishings and murals, in a remarkable exercise of Victorian-Gothic whimsy.