Orava Castle is a true stronghold — a fortress built directly onto a sheer rock above the Orava River, rising in three levels that follow the cliff. Very few castles in Central Europe match its position or its silhouette. When you walk through it, you move upward through centuries of fortification rather than through a polished museum path.

Orava Castle isn’t just a rock-built stronghold; it’s also a piece of film history. Scenes from the 1922 silent classic horror movie “Nosferatu : A symphony of Horror” were shot here, making it one of the earliest Dracula filming locations.

On the way to Orava Castle we stop in Terchová, Jánošík’s birthplace, where a stainless-steel statue of this real 18th-century Carpathian outlaw stands above the village. Slovakia and Poland both treat Jánošík as part of their national folk tradition.