Romania’s Bran Castle Returned to the Habsburgs
BalkanTravellers.com
The official hand-over ceremony will take place on June 1, the Romanian newspaper Adevarul reported today. “On Monday will be signed the verbal protocol for its hand-over and receipt. In the future the castle will function as a museum, open to visitors,” Narcis Dorin, the museum’s director told the publication.
Since March, objects from the Bran Castle’s heritage have been transferred to the castle’s medieval department, where a new exhibition fund for larger objects will be founded, while smaller ones have been distributed in various depositories.
Located on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia in central Romania, the Bran Castle is commonly referred to as “Dracula's Castle,” and marketed as the home of the titular character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, although - as BalkanTravellers.com reported in March, there is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle. What’s more Vlad Ţepeş (Vlad the Impaler), the fifteenth-century ruler of Wallachia, who inspired the Dracula novel, never resided in the castle either.
The castle now displays art and furniture collected by the Romanian Queen Marie, when it served as her home in the 1920s, when she wasn’t in her palace in Balchik.
Seized by the communist regime after the expulsion of the royal family in 1948, in 2006 the Romanian government returned the Bran Castle to Queen Marie’s grandson, Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany, known as Dominic von Habsburg, an architect in New York State. Although the Archduke initially intended to sell the property, at the beginning of this year he announced that he would instead turn it into a museum dedicated to the legend and history of Dracula.
Read more about Romania on BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Romania
Epicure
Balkans
Balkan Culinary Wars III: Other People’s Meatballs
Ćevapčići from Leskovac, köfte from İzmir or Bulgarian kebapche? Greek keftedes too, please!
Full Story
Useful Reads
Balkans
Through Another Europe (2009) | Edited by Andrew Hammond
When Henry Blount journeyed through Bosnia in the 1630s, two things struck him: the purity of the water and the great height of the Bosnians, which, he noted, “made me suppose them the offspring of those old Germans noted by Tacitus and Caesar for their huge size.”
Full Story
Music
Romania
A Gang of Romanian Rebels
The Romanian group Taraf de Haïdouks is a mandatory introduction to the Roma culture on the Balkans. Full Story
-
Photogalleries
-
A Perfect Shot
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
excellent smugs