Teenager documents inconveniences of living in real-life medieval castle in viral TikTok videos

It is frequently cold, cleaning can take ages, and wifi is often spotty, 19-year-old resident says

(TikTok / @thecastlediary)

A 19-year-old has gone viral on TikTok with videos documenting why living in a 12th century castle isn’t as glamorous as one would expect.

Ludovica Sannazzaro, who goes by the username @thecastlediary on TikTok, lives in the Italian castle Castello Sannazzaro, located in Monferrato, Italy, with her family.

However, according to Sannazzaro, whose family has passed down the mansion for 28 generations, the realities of castle life weren’t always accurately depicted in Disney fairytales, as the 107,639-sq-ft-home can actually be quite inconvenient.

In a TikTok posted last week, the 19-year-old describes the daily race to meet the mail carrier when he rings the doorbell with a package, only for the lengthy exit from the house to take too long.

“Every day the same story…” Sannazzaro captioned the clip, which sees her enjoying her breakfast as the doorbell rings, prompting her to run through various intricately decorated rooms before finally running out the front door and through the gate just as the driver pulls away.

The video, which has been viewed more than 7.6m times, has amused viewers, who have been both sympathetic and envious of Sannazzaro’s plight.

“I want to have this problem,” one person commented, while another said: “I don’t want to be a princess then. I’m too lazy.”

Someone else amusingly questioned: “What in the fairytale house is this?”

While missed package deliveries don’t seem to be too big of an inconvenience if it means living in a castle, Sannazzaro has previously shared the other downsides to residence in the family home, which features 45 rooms and 15 bedrooms.

In a TikTok shared in March, the college student revealed that “everyone wants to live in a castle until they find out” that it also means “the wifi never works,” it’s always “freezing cold,” cleaning takes forever, and “if you want something you have to walk a marathon”.

However, according to Sannazzaro, life in the castle, which also includes a dungeon, a church, a 269,097-square-foot garden, isn’t all bad, as she acknowledged that the ballrooms meant she could live out her princess fantasies when she was younger, and that she often forgets how incredible her situation actually is.

“When I was younger, I used to watch Disney movies with princesses, and I could pretend that I was them running around the castle or dancing in the ballroom,” she told Insider. “At first, I didn’t even realise that I was living in a place quite like this. I was raised here and I grew up here, so sometimes I forget how amazing this is because it’s just my house.”

According to the TikToker’s father, Count Giuseppe Sannazzar, the family moved into the castle in 2006 - at which point they opened it as a bed and breakfast - after he inherited it from a great-aunt in 1986.

Despite the various inconveniences associated with castle life, the videos of Castello Sannazzaro posted to Sannazzaro’s TikTok account, where she has more than 910,000 followers, typically spark joyful responses among viewers.

“You are literally living my dream life,” one viewer commented.