Ljubljana Castle

A fortress on Castle Hill above the city, probably built in the eleventh century and rebuilt in the twelfth, given its present outline by an almost complete overhaul in the fifteenth; most of the buildings date from the sixteenth and seventeenth. It began as a defensive structure and became the seat of the lords of Carniola in the first half of the fourteenth century, was put to various other uses from the early nineteenth, and is now a cultural venue. The hill has been continuously settled since 1200 BC. The castle appears on the city’s coat of arms, with a dragon above it.