Found deep in the Ozark Mountains in northwestern Arkansas it is one of the country's newest and probably most unique tourist attractions. The Ozark Medieval Fortress is the first full-scale castle being built on American soil. An army of craftsmen is using authentic tools and techniques from the Middle Ages to build a towering stone fortress that will not be completed until 2030.
Teams of architects, craftsmen and artisans started work in late 2009 on the 20-year project. It's all being done just the way it would have happened in Europe (except for a few nods to building codes and OSHA safety regulations). Workers are using locally quarried stones that are carved by hand, forged tools and old-fashioned manual labor. Carpenters, stonecutters, potters and others in period costumes toil each day at the project site, stopping only to answer questions from the visitors who began arriving after the project opened to the public in May 2010. The site includes a wooden castle reproduction to help tourists and schoolchildren visualize the finished product: a fortress with six-foot-thick stone walls, a drawbridge and towers reaching 24 feet above the inner courtyard.
The project is the work of a French couple, Michel Guyot and Noemi Brunet. Guyot has restored one castle in France and is already 10 years into a 20-year construction project similar to the Ozarks fortress. A local couple originally from France heard about Guyot's project and convinced him to duplicate the undertaking near their hometown in the Ozarks.
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| Taken from Ozark Medieval Website |
The Ozark Medieval Fortress is less than an hour from glitzy Branson, Missouri, approximately 2 hours from Eureka Springs, or the quieter Harrison, Arkansas. Learn more at http://www.ozarkmedievalfortress.com/en-us/
Article taken from http://www.where2nowmag.com/
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