The Most Beautiful Ancient Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Europe
7 places in 5 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in Europe are Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy), Tower of Hercules (Spain) and Diocletian's Palace (Croatia). The list covers 7 ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in 5 countries. Germany has the most, with 2. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Ancient fortifications were built to impress as much as to protect. A city gate announced the power of its king to everyone who passed through it, and a lighthouse or a mausoleum on a riverbank declared the reach of an empire. Many of these structures outlived their purpose by being turned into something else, a church, a fortress, a town, which is why so many survive with walls still standing to their full height.
The Lion Gate at Mycenae, from the 13th century BC, sets two carved lionesses above a lintel of a single huge block in walls of Cyclopean masonry. The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, built under Nebuchadnezzar II and reconstructed in Berlin, gleams with glazed blue bricks bearing rows of bulls and dragons. In Trier, the Porta Nigra is the best-preserved Roman city gate north of the Alps, saved because it was converted into a church. Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome began as the mausoleum of Hadrian and became a papal fortress linked to the Vatican by a walled passage. Diocletian's Palace in Split, built for the emperor's retirement around 300 AD, became the core of a living city, and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña is a Roman lighthouse still in use.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Castel Sant'Angelo | Castle | Italy | |
| 2 | Tower of Hercules | Fortified tower | Spain | ✓ |
| 3 | Diocletian's Palace | Palace | Croatia | ✓ |
| 4 | Porta Nigra | City gate | Germany | ✓ |
| 5 | Lion Gate, Mycenae | City gate | Greece | |
| 6 | Ishtar Gate | City gate | Germany | |
| 7 | Domus Aurea | Ruins | Italy |
01 Castel Sant'Angelo
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.903° N 12.466° E
Image by rainhard2 from Pixabay Hadrian started building his own tomb in 123 CE and didn't live to see it finished — it was completed in 139 under his successor Antoninus Pius, a cylindrical drum of a monument meant to hold the ashes of an emperor and his family for eternity. Eternity lasted about three centuries as a mausoleum.
Did you know? The current bronze angel by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt replaced a 1536 marble Saint Michael by Raffaello da Montelupo in 1753.
02 Tower of Hercules
Torre de Hércules
Spain · 6.3 km from A Coruña43.386° N 8.406° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga) · CC BY-SA 3.0 There were dozens of lighthouses like this one once, scattered around the edges of the Roman world. There is exactly one left that still works.
Did you know? Of the tower's roughly 55 metres, about 34 are surviving Roman masonry; the top 21 metres were added during the 18th-century restoration.
03 Diocletian's Palace
Dioklecijanova palača
Croatia · 2.9 km from Split43.508° N 16.438° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by neufal54 from Pixabay Diocletian, the emperor who divided power among four rulers and then did something rare for a Roman emperor — abdicated, in 305 — chose a peninsula on the Dalmatian coast for his retirement, a few kilometres from Salona, the provincial capital.
Did you know? In the 7th century a small church of St Martin was built above the Golden Gate.
04 Porta Nigra
Germany · 18.1 km from Grevenmacher49.760° N 6.644° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by connie_sf from Pixabay The Porta Nigra is the only survivor of the four gates that once closed the roughly rectangular circuit of Roman Trier, and today it is one of the best-preserved Roman city gates north of the Alps. It was raised in the late second century, after about 170 AD, from large blocks of grey sandstone.
Did you know? Tree-ring dating of timber from the city wall, published in 2018, fixed the start of construction at 170 AD, after estimates had ranged from the 2nd to the 4th century.
05 Lion Gate, Mycenae
Πύλη των Λεόντων
Greece37.731° N 22.756° E
Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5 The Lion Gate was the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae in the Argolid, the fortress that gave its name to the late Bronze Age civilisation of mainland Greece. It was built around 1250 BC, when the circuit of walls was extended to enclose more of the hill, and it has never been buried: it has stood in view for more than three thousand years.
Did you know? The travel writer Pausanias saw and described the gate in the 2nd century AD, roughly 1,400 years after it was built.
06 Ishtar Gate
Ischtar-Tor
Germany · 0.4 km from Berlin52.521° N 13.396° E
LBM1948 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate of the inner city of Babylon, built around 569 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II and dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. It is one of the most dazzling survivals of the ancient world.
Did you know? In Berlin, hundreds of crates of glazed fragments were desalinated and pieced together, with gaps filled by new bricks fired in a specially built kiln to match the colours.
07 Domus Aurea
Italy · 1.4 km from Rome41.891° N 12.495° E
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain Buried under the Oppian Hill, a stone's throw from the Colosseum, lie the vaulted halls of the most extravagant palace ancient Rome ever saw.
Did you know? An artificial lake in Nero's grounds occupied the valley where the Colosseum was later built.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in Europe?
- On our list, Castel Sant'Angelo (Italy) ranks first, followed by Tower of Hercules (Spain) and Diocletian's Palace (Croatia).
- Which country has the most ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in Europe?
- In our collection, the most come from Germany (2), Italy (2) and Croatia (1).
- Why is the Porta Nigra so well preserved?
- In the 11th century the Roman gate was turned into a church in honour of the hermit Simeon, who had lived in it. When Napoleon ordered the church removed, the original Roman structure was restored rather than demolished.
- What was Castel Sant'Angelo originally?
- It was built as the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. In the Middle Ages it was turned into a fortress and later used by the popes as a refuge and prison.
- Why is the Ishtar Gate in Berlin?
- German archaeologists excavated Babylon in the early 20th century and brought large quantities of glazed bricks to Berlin, where the gate was reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum.
- How many ancient castles, palaces and fortresses are on this list in Europe?
- The list covers 7 ancient castles, palaces and fortresses in 5 countries. Germany has the most, with 2.