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The castle is an impressive building standing on an overhanging wall behind which is the opening to a Karstic cave, and is reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It is easy to imagine the robber-knight Erazem, last of the line of the belligerent Luegers who lived in the castle. A legendary warrior against the Ottomans, he fell out of the emperor’s favour and withdrew to his cavernous castle, harassing travellers moving between Trieste and Vienna. Eventually, the emperor instructed Raubar, the governor of Trieste, to capture the rogue knight. A long siege of the inaccessible castle was fruitless as Erazem had stockpiled supplies, including cherries from the Vipava valley, in the cave's secret tunnels. He was killed in 1484 after being betrayed by one of his servants. The new masters of the castle, which originally lay entirely within the cave, extended it in the late 16th century, giving it its current Renaissance form. Today, it houses museum collections and has well preserved period furniture.
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