Kamerlengo castle - or Fortress Kamerlengo as the locals like to call it in an attempt to make the place sound altogether more grand than it actually is - has stood since the middle of the 15th century on the harbour front at Trogir and provides that part of the skyline which draws people to the island when they see it on postcards. Originally, the fortress was surrounded by a sand filled ditch - because walking on sand was obviously considered far too treacherous for invaders to attempt back then - and numerous internal defences with which to send potential raiders away sans legs and various internal organs to consider the error of their ways. This, despite the fact that Kamerlengo is already situated on an island, which comes conveniently surrounded by water and includes two bridges which it would've been far easier to fortify. But then, the 15th century elite have never been particularly known for their problem solving skills, spending most of their time as they did throwing copious amounts of wine down themselves and laughing uproariously at silly little men in brightly coloured hats, so I can't say I'm altogether surprised by these design flaws. Today, the courtyard at Kamerlengo is used during the summer months as a venue for open air theatre and impromptu cinematic delights, with tourists able to wander around the ruins at other times and climb to the top of the battlements to look out over the harbour front - which unfortunately looks, from this angle, a little too much like a place for millionaires to park their yacht. There seems to be a tendency for people with yachts to descend on anywhere remotely pretty and claim them as their own - providing said village is next to a body of water, of course - leading to the rather strange sight that often greets a weary traveller when they arrive at their medieval fortress town to find it surrounded by cruisers and filled with people wearing enough bling to dazzle the sun. On the other hand, if you've parked your car on the street below and see some young scoundrel attempting to remove its wheels, being at the top of Kamerlengo castle puts you in the perfect position to launch an all out assault on them with 15th century muskets and any cannons you might have brought with you, so swings and roundabouts.

Climbing up to the battlements is, in itself, an adventure well worth the measly 20 Kuna entrance fee. The fortress and adjoining St Mark's Tower are, it has to be said, not best maintained, and if you visit out of season or when there isn't any open air theatre going on, you can reasonably expect to find chairs stacked up against the courtyard walls as though they've been randomly thrown there by a giant attempting to ransack the place, and you'll get a general sense that nobody has bothered doing anything with the place for at least a couple of centuries. It's dirty, is what I guess I'm trying to say - but that's also part of the charm. If you went to a 15th century castle and found it to have gleaming metal walls and a general smell of bleach, you might well be a little suspicious that not everything is quite as authentic as it should be, after all. The stairs up to the battlements are, to put it politely, rickety, and making your way through the turrets at the four corners of the fortress is a little like trying to navigate one of those child's play park assault courses you so delighted in visiting when you were 5 - stairs ascend in every direction, leading to mysterious doors to nowhere and rooms which nobody appears to have quite got around to finishing. I actually felt as though the wooden floor was getting ready to fall away from beneath me as I walked on it, and at one point, I had to step over a missing wooden stair which, had I not noticed it, would've resulted in me being unexpectedly deposited in a heap some two stories below - they certainly don't appear to spend any of the entrance fee on making the place safe. I did, however, spend a totally inappropriate amount of time attempting to take photographs of lime water dripping through the stone ceiling and forming multicoloured stalagmites on the floor by the entrance to one of the towers, and thats something I probably wouldn't have been able to do if they actually looked after the place a little more thoroughly. While I was looking up at the ceiling, a single drop of lime fell into my eye, so I fully expect to have a stalagmite growing out of it in the morning.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.