House & Garden 
the building to one of his secret counsellors 
who made many repairs still visible in the 
castle’s now excellent condition. The defense 
walls have long since disappeared and the 
old edifice is at peace with its surroundings. 
Under present owners, who have embellished 
the interior, feudal memories have faded and 
Gandegg has become a luxurious home. 
The gray towers of Schloss Trostburg are 
a splendid landmark upon the mountain side 
above the village of Waidbruck, at the mouth 
of the Grddnerthal. A rocky promontory 
over two thousand feet above the sea has 
given foundation for an imperious pile com¬ 
manding as wide a prospect as a jealous lord 
could ever have desired. The fore buildings 
of the entrance stretch up the mountain side 
while strav crumbling walls in a ravine below 
show the great extent of the original fastness. 
Pyramidal roofs and small windows, many of 
them embrasured and surrounded by plain 
bands of stone, characterize the building. 
Here as at Fischburg (see House and 
Garden for December, 1901) the walls have 
been roughly plastered and irregular quoins 
mark the corners in a rudely decorative way, 
at harmony with the unfinished and vigorous 
architecture of defense. 
The most interesting building in all the 
Tyrol is probably the Castle of Runkelstein. 
Upon a rocky eminence rising from the con¬ 
fluence of two streams near Botzen it has a 
background of higher mountains of the same 
stone which has passed into its walls. It is 
far more than a specimen of one epoch, or 
locality, or the caprices of a single family, for 
it summarizes the different phases of Tyrolese 
life existing during all the periods of its con¬ 
struction. The Romans must have been 
struck with the commanding position of its 
\ 
2 1 
