Having lived in Germany for four years, I spent some time seeking out and touring castles around Europe. It mattered not their state of decay or opulence, I’d always stop, hike, tour and seek out the history. Suffice it to say, I’ve seen some grandeur in those tours, but Peles Castle in Romania blew me away.
My day to visit Peles started with my lovely local friend Paula picking me up to drive from Bucharest to Sinaia about 124 kms away. The drive is beautiful as Peles is situated in southeastern Carpathian Mountains, the “Aspen” of Eastern Europe if you will. During the drive, I got to know a bit more about my friend Paula who is an intelligent, kind and hard working Romanian who lived through communism and shared some stories enlightening me of her journey. Her gratitude for the life she was now building made me feel like a spoiled American who needed to “check myself”. It was inspiring. She is inspiring.
Approaching the castle took me back to Germany. Not just because it was a castle but because the design itself had the flavour of Germany itself. I later found out that the castle, commissioned by King Carol I of Romania in 1873, was in fact designed by a German Architect, Johannes Schultz. Mr Schultz didn’t just blend the European styles of Italian elegance and German Gothic Revival aesthetics along Renaissance lines into the architectural design, but in the actual construction of the castle.
Queen Elisabeth of the Romanian wrote in her journal about the construction,
Italians were masons, Romanians were building terraces, the Gypsies were coolies. Albanians and Greeks worked in stone, Germans and Hungarians were carpenters. Turks were burning brick. Engineers were Polish and the stone carvers were Czech. The Frenchmen were drawing, the Englishmen were measuring, and so was then when you could see hundreds of national costumes and fourteen languages in which they spoke, sang, cursed and quarrelled in all dialects and tones, a joyful mix of men, horses, cart oxen and domestic buffaloes.
While the castle was nationalized during the communist era of Romania, it was returned to the royal family as the result a long court battle concluding in 2007. At the family’s request, it remains a National Museum and is occasionally used for public royal ceremonies and such. It’s my understanding that the family does maintain a residence at the castle and can sometimes be found blending in with the tourists.
Our tour included two floors and a limited subset of the 170 rooms of the castle. It is lavishly furnished down to every detail with collections of statues, paintings, gold, silver, ivory, tapestries and over 4,000 pieces of arms and armoury that span four centuries. It is absolutely magnificent and well worth a visit. I can’t promise you that your hostess will be as wonderful as Ms Paula though! 😉
Logistics Note: it can be a little difficult to find the ticket center and the starting location of your tour, even if you speak Romanian. Plan to for some “roaming” time to locate things upon your arrival.
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