Hansel, Gretel and the Castle Peles

Castle Peles

Gate house for the castle

For our last day of touring out of Braşov we did a loop south into the mountains. Oh yeah, did I mention how much Bear likes mountains? We went to Sinaia to see the Castle Peleş. It was fantastic, jaw-dropping to quote the guide books. When the Romanians got their independence from Hungary in the early mid-1800’s they decided they needed a king and so invited a prince from one of the German principalities to be king. He accepted and in the late 1800’s built this castle as a summer residence. The woodwork alone is more than worth the price of admission. We have no photos of the interiors because here, as in the churches we have visited, photography is not allowed. But look it up on the internet, definitely worth the effort!

Of course finding the place was a bit of a trick since we were so excited and had only the little, out of scale and hard to read guide book map. We blew into town, making several wrong turns onto roads from which there was no recovery before deciding that we were on the right road. We picked a sign that looked good (especially when one didn’t actually read the sign but made some, as it turned out, erroneous assumptions). And up the mountain we went. Now the guide book talked about walking to the castle from the train station but that didn’t deter us when we were driving through the forest 7 km out of town past the signs warning of bears. We knew the Romanians like to hike. Perhaps the unpaved narrow road should have been a clue but . . . . . whatever! When we got to the top there was nothing like a castle – several hiking lodges but no castle. So back down the mountain we went. The forest was lovely and we didn’t actually meet any bears. This time we decided we could drive a little slower and perhaps, figure out just where we were and where we wanted to be. In our excitement on the way up we missed the part where perhaps all those tour busses parked on the side of the road meant something. At any rate we eventually found our way and it was worth the trip.