Although it had once been a noble home, the sprawling Valtice Castle, which dates back at least to the 12th century, now houses the Czech Republic's National Wine Center, including tasting rooms dedicated to the country's best wine.
But trapped within the gilded cage of a noble home and rigid social etiquette, the now formally named "Princess Kaguya" longs for the lost countryside of her childhood, and the friendship of handsome ragamuffin Sutemaru, which has sparked an eternal flame in her heart.
For the uninitiated, Rowling's "Harry Potter" books and the Pottermore website "sort" Hogwarts students and aficionados into one of the magical institution's four boarding houses: Gryffindor (the noble home of Harry Potter and pals Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley), Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.
Downtown the Pousada Nossa Senhora da Oliveira faces the 14th-century church of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira and 15th-century nobles' homes on a medieval piazza, in the heart of the historic center.
Originally the home of a noble family, Casa del Capitel Nazarí, Cuesta Aceituneros, 6, (34-958) 215 260, on the Web at www.hotelcasacapitel.com, retains original ceramic tiling and antique detailing.
The hotel was a 16th century private summer home for a noble family, and hides behind an inauspicious door on a quiet cobblestoned pedestrian-only street, like a Riad in Marrakesh, opening to an oasis of inter-gardens, corridors, arches, sipping rooms (pear brandy made by monks, and slivovitz), staircases, art-filled hallways, balconies and pigeons.
On a blistering morning during the war's first summer, men had fought one another for principles that had sounded glorious and noble back home.
Curling up in an Imperial-style sofa against the parlour's 500-year-old stone wall, you'll feel as if you've just fallen into an elegant and slightly eccentric noble's home.
It runs near -- but not underneath -- the sacred and politically explosive enclosure known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Walk-off home run The noble "game-ending home run" -- a phrase that used to compliment the winner -- has been transformed into one that thumbs its nose at the loser.
