Romania · 14th century
Bethlen Castle (in Hungarian Bethlen-kastély) in Criș was built between the 14th and 18th centuries in the Transylvanian Renaissance style, as a fortified noble residence of modest scale (the most beautiful Renaissance castle in Transylvania). It has a fortified square-plan enclosure, with circular bastions at the corners and a square gate tower, a structure typical of late medieval military architecture, earlier than the castle on the southern side. The residence has two storeys, an imposing circular tower (the Archers' Tower) and a loggia with semicircular arched openings, supported on low cylindrical columns. After the castle was built, the fortification system was completed with a half-enclosure with wedge-shaped bastions.
Machine-translated from “Castelul Bethlen din Criș” on the Romanian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Bethlen Castle (Criș) ranks #6,285 of 9,035 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #59 of the 125 mapped in Romania. Founded c. 1350, it is older than 54% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 757 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,202 times in the last 60 days, more than 56% of the atlas. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Târgu Mureș, 46 km away. It is one of the 78 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Transylvania. See how Romania compares in the castle statistics.
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