C & C globetrotting around the world…

We drove from Buzau to Brasov through the Prahova valley. We stopped in Sinaia, but unfortunately we weren’t able to visit the interiors of Peles this time either. The Peles Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, between Bucharest (and Buzau) and Brasov. It was built in the 19th century on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia. King Carol I of Romania (1839–1914), under whose reign the country gained its independence, first visited the site of the future castle in 1866 and fell in love with the magnificent mountain scenery. He had the castle built here and Peleș became the world’s first castle fully powered by locally produced electricity. Inside, all the rooms are extremely lavishly furnished and decorated to the slightest detail. The establishment hosts one of the finest collections of art in Eastern and Central Europe, so we hope to be able to visit it soon. For now, we have to stick to the outdoors, which are also very nice.

On the other side of Brasov, we went on a tour of fortresses in the Burzenland with Katinka and Istvan. The area around Brasov is called “Tara Barsei” (The Burzenland) and is a historic area in southeastern Transylvania with a mixed population of Germans, Romanians and Hungarians. In 1211 the region was given to the Teutonic Knights by King Andrew II of Hungary in return for guarding the southeastern border of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Turks. The Teutonic Order (Today “German Order”), was a German medieval military order. It was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. They built forts for protection and farmed the land in the area. Since the exodus of most of the German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons in the 20th century, this region has been predominantly inhabited by Romanians, but many Hungarians remain.

We first had a delicious pick-nick with a beautiful view of the snow-capped mountains and then visited the fortress of Rasnov, situated on a cliff above the town of the same name. The town is situated on an important trade route, so invasions were common. This is why the inhabitants built the citadel around the year 1215 as a shelter against attacks from the Turks. Due to long and frequent sieges, the inhabitants had little houses and grain supplies inside the fortress. The fortress was only taken once because Gabriel Bathory, Prince of Transylvania, blocked the access to the nearby spring where the inhabitants were getting their water. Luckily the fortress was bought back a year later. From then on, the inhabitants dug a 143m-deep well into pure rock to have access to drinking water at all times. The citadel was used until the beginning of the 19^th century and is now nice to visit.

We then visited the fortress of “Harman” (“Honigberg” in German, literally “honey mountain”). Harman is known for its impressive fortress built in the 15^th century. There were 3 circular walls, two of which are still standing, as well as a moat between the first and the second wall. The interior wall is 12m high and 5m thick and has 7 towers connected through a passageway. Inside the fortress walls is a beautiful church dating back to the 13^th century. It combines a mix of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and German masses are still held here every Sunday. There are dozens of fortified churches in the area, but Harman is one of the biggest. Its specificity is also that on the outside wall of the church there are storage rooms.

To finish off the tour, we drove to Sf. Gheorghe (“Sepsiszentgyörgy”), a city with a large majority (77%) of Székely-Hungarians. The city takes it name from Saint George, the patron of the local church. While part of the Kingdom of Hungary, the city was the economic and administrative center of the Hungarian county of Háromszék. Sfântu Gheorghe is one of the centres for the Székely people in the region known to them as Székelyföld in Hungarian – which means “Székely Land”. The city was full of people taking advantage of the beautiful spring day. We walked around the city a bit before driving back to Brasov.