Bran Castle

Bran Castle (Romanian: Castelul Bran; German: Schloss Bran or Die Törzburg; Hungarian: Törcsvári kastély) is a castle in Bran, 25 kilometres (16 mi) southwest of Brașov. The castle was built by Saxons in 1377 who were given the privilege by Louis I of Hungary. It is a national monument and landmark in Transylvania. The fortress is on the Transylvanian side of the historical border with Wallachia, on road DN73.

Marketed outside Romania as Dracula's Castle, it is presented as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897). There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, voivode of Wallachia, whose byname 'Drăculea' resembles that of Dracula. Stoker's description of Dracula's crumbling fictional castle also bears no resemblance to Bran Castle.

The castle is now a museum dedicated to displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie. Tourists can see the interior on their own or by a guided tour. At the bottom of the hill is a small open-air museum exhibiting traditional Romanian peasant structures (cottages, barns, water-driven machinery, etc.) from the Bran region.

Text adapted from “Bran Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Bran Castle ranks #39 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #1 of the 115 mapped in Romania. Founded 1289, it is older than 66% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 825 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 69,720 times in the last 60 days, more than 100% of the atlas. 6 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Brașov, 24 km away. It is one of the 75 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Transylvania. See how Romania compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗