1700s – 1800s Three hundred years of ruin, and the raftsmen belowTristo rokov ruiny a pltníci pod ňou

For the next three centuries Strečno was an empty shell, and the work in the gorge moved down to the water. Timber felled in Orava and Liptov was bound into rafts and floated to the lowlands by pltníci, raftsmen who knew every rock in the channel by name and rated the Strečno narrows the worst water on the Váh. It was skilled, badly paid, seasonal work, and it drowned people. Meanwhile Žofia Bosniaková's preserved body was moved in 1729 from the castle down to the church at Teplička nad Váhom, where generations came to see her, until it was badly damaged in an attack on the church in 2009.Ďalšie tri storočia bolo Strečno prázdnou škrupinou a práca v tiesňave sa presťahovala dolu k vode. Drevo vyrúbané na Orave a v Liptove viazali do pltí a do nížin ho splavovali pltníci, ktorí poznali každý kameň v koryte po mene a strečniansku úžinu pokladali za najhoršiu vodu na Váhu. Bola to zručná, zle platená sezónna robota — a brala životy. Zachované telo Žofie Bosniakovej medzitým roku 1729 preniesli z hradu dolu do kostola v Tepličke nad Váhom, kam ju chodili vidieť celé generácie, až kým ho pri útoku na kostol v roku 2009 ťažko nepoškodili.