Royal Castle, Renaissance ResidenceKráľovský hrad, renesančné sídlo
Likava went up in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as a royal castle, and its job was the road under it. The Váh valley is the natural corridor through this part of the country, and the traffic moving along it — timber and cattle down, salt and goods up, and everything heading north toward Orava and the Polish trade — could be watched, taxed and stopped from this knoll. Where there is a customs point, there is soon a castle.Likava vyrástla v trinástom a štrnástom storočí ako kráľovský hrad a jej úlohou bola cesta pod ňou. Dolina Váhu je prirodzeným koridorom touto časťou krajiny a doprava, ktorá po nej putovala — drevo a dobytok dolu, soľ a tovar hore a všetko smerujúce na sever na Oravu a k poľskému obchodu — sa dala z tohto brala sledovať, zdaňovať i zastaviť. Kde je mýto, tam býva čoskoro aj hrad.
In the fifteenth century the castle was held by Peter Komorovský, a magnate whose men treated Liptov and Orava as their own to plunder, until King Matthias Corvinus put an end to it and took the castle back into royal hands. Later Likava passed to the Thurzó family — the house that also held Orava and Bytča — who rebuilt it as a Renaissance residence and ran their Liptov estates from behind its walls. That double character is still legible in the stonework: a hard medieval core with a comfortable later house grafted onto it.V pätnástom storočí hrad držal Peter Komorovský, veľmož, ktorého ľudia sa k Liptovu a Orave správali ako k vlastnej koristi, kým tomu kráľ Matej Korvín neurobil koniec a hrad nevrátil do kráľovských rúk. Neskôr Likava prešla na Thurzovcov — rod, ktorý držal aj Oravu a Bytču — a tí ju prestavali na renesančné sídlo a spoza jej múrov spravovali svoje liptovské panstvá. Tento dvojaký ráz je v murive čitateľný dodnes: tvrdé stredoveké jadro a naň naštepený pohodlnejší neskorší dom.
Its end came with the eighteenth century. During the Rákóczi uprising the castle was deliberately slighted so that it could not serve as a stronghold again, and it has been a ruin ever since. The difference between Likava and the ruins further east is what happened next: this one has had decades of conservation, so wall crowns are capped, vaulted rooms are open and safe, and you can walk through a real castle plan rather than guess at one.Jej koniec priniesol začiatok osemnásteho storočia. Počas Rákócziho povstania hrad zámerne zbúrali, aby už nemohol slúžiť ako pevnosť, a odvtedy je zrúcaninou. Rozdiel medzi Likavou a zrúcaninami ďalej na východe je v tom, čo prišlo potom: tejto sa dostalo desaťročí obnovy, takže koruny múrov sú prekryté, klenuté priestory sú prístupné a bezpečné a prejdete si skutočný hradný pôdorys namiesto toho, aby ste ho odhadovali.
