Bran Castle

Bran Castle is one of the most well-known touristical attractions in Romania. He got his reputation not due his arhitectonical beauty, but due to a rather bizarre association with the famous personage count Dracula, who borrowed it some of his vast fame. So, some people came to believe that this castel is the lair of the feared vampire. It isn't quite so, because Bran Castle doesn't have any connections with the personage from movies and books, only vague connections the ruler of Wallachia Vlad the Impaler (1448, 1456-1462, 1476), nicknamed Dracula, who was too unfairley associated with the personage of count Dracula.
It is believed that Vlad the Impaler was coming here when he was going to hunt, but this isn't a fact for sure.
Even if the fame brought by Dracula doesn't have a justification, Bran Castle deserves our admiration for its arhitectonical beauty and for the long centuries in which he existed, in which it witnessed so many events, it offered shelter to so many valuable objects and it belonged to so many important historical personalities. The first documentary attestation dates for more than 600 years, since November 19th 1377, when Ludovic I of Anjou, the king of Hungary, gave to the inhabitants of Brasov the privilege to buld, "with their own work and money", the fortress that would have been situated at 30 kilometers from their city, near the Mountains Bucegi and Piatra Craiului. The document also specified that 13 localities were subordonated to the Castle and the comitting of its management to a castel owner, with juridical atributions, and its defense to a garrison of archers and ballistars. Between 1419-1424, Bran Castle came back in the possession of Sigismund. At the end of the XV-th century, Bran fortress entered under the authority of the Szeklers' Cometee, responsible with the defense of the south-eastern Transylvania, and, during the reign of Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara, under the authority of the principality of Transylvania. In these centuries, of the Middle Ages, Bran Castle, because of its strategical position, supervised and controled the Bran Custom House and, in this way, the commerce between Transylvania and Wallachia and, on a higher level, even between Europe and the Orient. He also fully fulfilled its role of defender of Transylvania in front of the Ottoman threat.
On December the 1st 1920, the Town Council of the City Brasov donated Bran Castle to Queen Mary of Great Romania, in sign of recognition of the role she playied in the Great Union of the Three Romanian Countries on December the 1st 1918.
Between 1920-1927, Bran Castle was restaured by the architect of the Royal Court, Carol Liman, who teransformed it from a powerful defense fortress into a beautyful summer residence. So, to Bran Castle were added a park, with alleies, terraces, fountains and a lake, and a Tea House, that can still be visited today. In 1938, Bran Castle and his domain were inhareted by the daughter of Queen Mary, princess Ileana, who masters it for 10 years until the expulsion from the country of the royal family, when it enters under the possetion of the Romanian State. Unfortunately, it lies wasted a period, but, in 1956, is arranged as a Museum of History and Medieval Art. Between 1987 and 1993, Bran Castle has been in renovation and has been opened as a museum.