The Morava valley has carried traffic between the Danube and the north for as long as there has been trade to carry; the route later called the Amber Road ran up it. Where Holíč stands the river can be crossed and the land is dead flat — good for farming, good for a ford, hopeless for defence. There is no rock here, no ridge, nothing for a castle to sit on and look down from. That single geographical fact decides the next thousand years, because everything built here to control the crossing had to be engineered out of earth, water and, eventually, mathematics.Údolím Moravy sa vozil tovar medzi Dunajom a severom odvtedy, čo je čo voziť; viedla ním trasa, ktorú neskôr nazvali Jantárová cesta. Tam, kde stojí Holíč, sa rieka dá prejsť a krajina je celkom rovná — dobrá na hospodárenie, dobrá na brod, na obranu beznádejná. Niet tu skaly, niet hrebeňa, niet ničoho, na čom by hrad sedel a odkiaľ by mal výhľad. Táto jediná geografická skutočnosť rozhodne o ďalšom tisícročí, lebo všetko, čo tu postavili na kontrolu prechodu, museli vyrobiť z hliny, vody a napokon z matematiky.
