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One of a few well preserved castles in Slovakia. (Plenty of them are ruins, some similar medieval constructions are not castles sensu stricto, but countryside palaces.)
This huge castle which name in Slovak means Red Rock is situated on a quartz hill over a small village of Píla in the Small Carpathian Mountains in Western Slovakia. Originally, the royal castle from the half of 13 century functioned as part of a fortified castle line on the border of Austria. Since the early 16 century it became a property of the Thurzo family and later on the Fuggero family, which was then one of the richest family in Europe. Fuggeros started a general reconstruction of the castle into a fortress with large basement rooms that were to function as storehouses for goods transported to the west Europe. However, the castle never fulfilled this function. Since the end of 16 century till 1945 it was owned by the Palffy family. They rebuilt and transformed it into a Renaissance-Baroque palace full of magnificent interiors. Nowadays there can be seen well-preserved interiors full of stuccos, sculptures and historical furniture. In 1970 the castle was declared the National Cultural Monument.
In the new era (1992) the Museum in its interiors opened the exhibition of its collections. The south-west part was opened in 1993 and the south-east one in 1997.