Europe 2019 - Day 41 (Part 3)

16 June 2019, Sunday

Then to Bran castle! Unfortunately I couldn’t get a nice view of the whole castle which is a pity. Anyway it was during the day so it wouldn’t have looked so imposing at any rate. And Dracula would’ve been asleep anyway. Ok, enough with Dracula. 

The Castle has been around for about 7 centuries now. It was built between 1377 and 1382 for economic and strategic reasons. In the 14th century, the King of Poland and Hungary (Louis I of Anjou) issued a charter to build a fortress at the Eastern border of the Hungarian Kingdom. The Castle marked the customs point between Transylvania and Wallachia until 1836. It served several purpose at that time: as a transit point between East and West, a defence point against foreign invasion, a customs duty collection point and a quarantine point in the event of an epidemic.  

There is a legend that the Bran Castle was built upon the ashes of an older fortress made of wood built by the Teutonic Knights (a German Catholic Order founded at the end of the 13th century at Acra, Palestine; they were a military order who usually wore white clothing with a black cross) between 1211-1225, which unfortunately burned down in a fire.

After 1918, Transylvania became part of Greater Romania. In 1920 the City Council of Braşov symbolically offered Bran Castle to Queen Marie, wife of King Ferdinand I (of Germany) who played a pivotal role in forcing the Allied Powers to accept the unification of the Romanian provinces during WW I. She also played an active role during the war, using her own financial resources to care for the wounded soldiers, and to support and encourage the Romanian army and mobilise Red Cross volunteers. She became Queen of all Romania in 1922. 

Queen Marie left Bran Castle to Princess Ileana. Between 1944-1948, the Princess together with her husband, Anton Habsburg (Archduke of Austria) and their children lived in the Castle and continued its development. Then the Castle became a state owned museum during the communist era. In 2009 Bran Castle opened as a tourist attraction under private administration. 

The Castle is most popular for being the alleged abode of Count Dracula, he of the Bram Stoker fame. In 1897, the Irish writer Bram Stoker gave the world an imaginary character that fascinated and captivated the world until today: Dracula, an immortal Transylvanian count, thirsty for innocent blood. The legend created by Stoker is loosely based on the 15th century Wallachian prince, Vlad Tepes, who was famous for his severe punishments to law breakers and his enemies. He is known as Vlad the Impaler - a cruel man who impaled his enemies and put them up for show. It is also believed that he drank the blood of his worst enemies. 

Starting from Tepes’ bloody reputation, to his enigmatic death and the belief in supernatural beings such as the living dead, which is present in Romanian folklore, I guess you could say that Dracula is a mixture of fact and fiction. Popular theory is that Bran Castle is not the castle described in the novel, but there is the unshakeable persisting rumour that it is indeed the Dracula Castle described in the novel. And you know what they say. There’s no smoke without fire. 😁