Rapallo's castle

More on Italy, indeed the bella Italia!. Rapallo is a town in northwestern Italy, on the Ligurian Sea in the Genoa Province. The have an old castle offshore. Click on pic to enlarge. Now, if what you want is a really big pic, then click here for one second, it's my new playground...

Since I am afraid you cannot read the information pictured above, I will "read" it for you, literally:

"Off the shore of Rapallo is its "castle", built in 1551- It is surrounded by water and was designed by Mastro Antonio Carabo to protect the town from raids by the Barberian pirates, following a particularly heavy raid in 1549.

The fortress is typical of this period- which marked the changeover from traditional weapons to firearms. This is shown by the rounded walls which could deflect the cannonballs that at that time had very little piercing power.

At first there were two storeys, the lower one for the dungeons and the one above with firing square. Built entirely in stone with walls that were over two meter thick, its only external openings were for the cannons, in all four directions, and pit holes with flaps for the dungeons. Living quarters were minimal and cramped.

At the beginning of the 1600's a further storey was added and the firing square was moved to the tops so that the cannons with their improved range could command over the seas. At the same time the handsome tower was built and embellished with ornamental battlements without emrasures. Shortly afterwards a small appartment was built for the "Captain of Rapallo". When the castle was no longer needed for defence it was converted to civil use. It was finally restored in 1964 "

As for the term "emrasures" I wrote visitscotland.com since they describe one of the hotels as "The wall is pierced by a central gateway and ten gun emrasures" and no on-line dictionary gave me any light on this. I will update this post as soon as I hear either from them or from you! The castle nowadays is used for painting exhibitions all year. We saw the interesting works of a local artist. And then we could just sit outside at the "Old Ice Cream Parlor" almost across the street to enjoy our drinks and goodies (they are served with your drinks. They didn't only offer ice-cream!). We watched the castle and people walk by. I loved it!