Bran Castle

Today we went to go see a beautiful castle, it was a rainy morning, but we headed out early. Good thing we did, because we beat the crowds. Today is the Eastern Orthodox Easter and much of the Romanian population are practicing Eastern Orthodox Christians. Apparently they do their services starting at midnight to celebrate the light of the resurrection and, we were told, they can last up to 5 hours! That meant that when the castle opened at 10 we were at the beginning of the line without too much of a crowd. By the time we got out the line was insane!

Bran Castle

Stone staircase near the castle entrance

looking up

Bran Castle is commonly known as Dracula’s Castle because it is linked to Vlad the Impaler, although somewhat tangentially. He likely passed through at some point, but it was not his castle. Also Bram Stoker likely did not know about this castle when he wrote Dracula. It is a beautiful fairytale type castle, though, which makes for these types of linkages. This castle was initially built in 1212, but was destroyed by Mongols in 1242. The current stone castle was built between 1377 and 1382 and it was used in defense against the Ottoman Empire. It was also used as a customs point as it is located on what was the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. The castle was in various hands over time: Wallachian, Hungarian, Saxon royal family, and later Romanian. It remained a customs point until 1836.

courtyard

selling decorated Easter eggs inside the castle

inside the castle looking out at the town

inside the castle

view of the countryside from the castle

roof tiles

another view of the castle

A food vendor outside of the castle. Those are huge pots of food!

After 1918 Transylvania became part of Romania and Bran Castle was offered to Queen Marie as a royal residence. Queen Marie was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria who married in to the Romanian royal family and is revered here even today. She is known for helping her husband rule and for working as a nurse in WWI, with her daughters, caring for injured soldiers. She also represented her country internationally. She helped renovate Bran Castle, adding the 3rd and 4th floors, windows, a telephone, and even installed an electric turbine to power the castle and the surrounding villages. When she died she left the castle to her children. The royal family fled when the country fell to communism and the castle fell into disrepair. In 2009 it was returned to the Hapsburg family who refurbished it and opened it to the public.

dining room Queen Marie had refurbished

Queen Marie’s coat of arms

one of Queen Marie’s outfits

crown

part of a painted door

On our drive to and from Bran we went through the town of Râșnov which has a fortress on the hill overlooking it. It is thought to have been built between 1211-1255 and was only successfully conquered once. It didn’t have its own water source, which was its downfall. After that, a 479 ft well was dug.

Râșnov Fortress

countryside

This evening we made it to our ship, so now the actual cruise can begin!