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Bran Castle

BRAN Castle

 

A fortified castle designed in the Gothic style (14th c.) and placed on top of a rock in the pass between the Bucegi and the Piatra Craiului Mountains; during the Middle Ages it was used for defence against Ottoman raids; it also served as a customs station. Its walls, made of river boulders, were raised by the people in Brasov. It has an irregular trapezoid shape and four levels with access made through a majestic staircase. A massive dungeon dominates its northern side with 4 towers oriented towards the four cardinal points. The castle once belonged to the Wallachian ruling prince Mircea the Old (1395); after 1498 it was owned in turn by the inhabitants of Brasov and by the Hapsburg Empire's administrator. In 1920 the inhabitants of Brasov offered it as a gift to Queen Mary of Romania, niece of queen Victoria; she held it as her second favourite residence after the one in Balcic (present Bulgaria); as requested in Queen Mary's will, after her death, her heart was placed in a silver casket and buried in a grotto by the castle for a while; nowadays, the Museum within the castle exhibits Romanian and foreign furniture and art objects from the 14th-19th centuries.