Wednesday, August 29
Today we decided to go to Peles Castle in the nearby town of Sinaia, which is in the province of Walachia. Peles Castle, along with Bran Castle, are two of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Romania and yet it’s been difficult to get accurate information on admission fees, hours and public transportation options. Even their own websites have been woefully inadequate.
Considering all available information we decided to take the train to Sinaia. The trip took just an hour. Based on the official CFR (train operator) website we expected to pay 13 Lei per person. The actual cost was 16.5 Lei per person.
The first place we visited was the Sinaia Monastery. It’s interesting to note that the name “Sinaia” is a derivative of the word “Sinai” and is meant to be an homage to Mount Sinai in Israel. The Monastery was founded by Prince Mihail Cantacuzino in 1695 (you may recall that this is the same family whose palace we visited in Bucharest and the family into which George Enescu married). It’s a fortified church with high walls surrounding the entire complex. This was the place where the royal family attended services when they were in residence at Peles (Pel-esh) Castle.
(Fortified Sinaia Monastery)
The grounds include a large church, an active monastery, a museum and a cloister that contains an older church from the medieval period. We were charged five Lei per person to enter. The grounds were beautifully manicured (it’s obvious that the monks are fond of growing roses) and the churches are in immaculate condition. During the time we were there a service was being conducted in the large church. We heard the priests singing. It sounded like a combination of Gregorian and Islamic chanting. It was very different from what we’re used to and had a pleasing sound.
Next we walked over to Peles Castle. This castle was built on the orders of King Carol I, the first King of Romania, and was where the royal family summered. Construction began in 1873. The castle was built in stages and was completed in 1914. During the communist period the royal family was forced to flee the country and ownership of their castles reverted to the State. In 2006 the State returned ownership of Peles Castle to the descendants of the royal family but retained the rights to run the castle as a public museum.
(Peles Castle)
The official castle website is only in Romanian so we checked other sources for costs. All of them were outdated and were wrong. The cost for entry is 30 Lei per person for the first floor tour or 60 Lei per person to see the first and second floors. The only option for visiting the castle is by guided tour. For the privilege of taking photos there is an additional charge of 35 Lei. These costs are higher than any other museum or site we’ve been to in Romania and would be considered outrageously expensive for the many Romanians that we saw there. Another fun fact: all payments must be made in cash. This fact is not listed anywhere in third party web sites and is only shown as a small footnote on the official website. There is a cash machine near the ticket office.
This was by far the worst tour we we’ve taken since we left the States. Besides the cost it was disorganized, overcrowded, rushed and there was no information about how/where/when the second floor tour was to occur. Our group numbered about 50 people, which was way too many to fit in many of the rooms we visited. In several of the passages we could only walk single file. It was very hard to hear the guide over the noise made by the many nearby groups and he rushed from room to room without giving us time to really look around or take photos. He would usually start talking before we were all in the room and many of us missed much of what he said.
In frustration, Deborah finally called his attention to the fact that not everyone was in the room and that he needed to wait before speaking. His response was, “Why isn’t everyone here?” to which Deborah replied, “Because they’re still trying to get through the crowd in the hallway”. His response, “I don’t care. I have a schedule to keep.” It got pretty ugly after that but ultimately he did slow down and tried to wait for the group. It has to be pretty bad for Deborah to complain.
The good news is that the castle is absolutely stunning and by far the nicest palace we’ve seen in Romania. Virtually the entire interior, walls and ceilings, is covered in beautifully and intricately carved dark wood. The first floor contains public rooms intended for official functions. The second floor rooms are the private quarters of the royal family. We saw both.
(Three Story Main Hall – Peles Castle)
All of the rooms have original furnishings and personal effects. One of the King’s collections, a multitude of medieval weapons and armor from all over the world, was featured in several of the lower floors. There were lots of high quality paintings of the royal family as well. On the second floor we saw copies of several old master’s paintings that the king had copied because he could not obtain the originals.
(Weapons Collection – Peles Castle)
The first floor contained a small theater where plays were performed and movies were screened. It was the first private movie theater in the country. A young Gustav Klimt, before he was internationally known, painted scenes along the tops of the walls.
There were several music rooms – one with huge frescos of allegories of the arts on the wall and several instruments that Queen Elizabeth played. The other music rooms all had organs in them.
The two story library featured a spiral staircase made of wood, gilded hardware and a secret door to the main corridor. Upstairs the King’s apartments featured 350 year old cordovan leather covered walls.
The tour left us in the garden in front of the castle. It was a nice place to take a few pictures before we headed over to the area near the guard tower to get some lunch. We made a quick meal out of a couple of slices of pizza (cash only) because we wanted to see Pelisor Castle before it closed (oh yeah, we had to wait in line in the hot sun for over 1.5 hours before it was our turn to tour Peles Castle).
Pelisor (Pel-i-shor) Castle is just a stones throw from Peles Castle. King Carol I and his wife Elizabeth had just one child who died of scarlet fever at the age of four. The new heir was designated as Ferdinand, Carol’s nephew. Carol had Pelisor Castle built as a summer home for Ferdinand and his family to use until he inherited the throne.
(Pelisor Castle)
The cost to visit Pelisor Castle was 20 Lei per person, cash only. If you wanted to take photographs there was an additional fee of 35 Lei (the fee of 35 Lei to photograph Peles Castle did not entitle you to photograph Pelisor Castle). The castle is smaller and less grand that Peles Castle and does not have the fine finishes you might expect. Still, it would certainly make a nice summer residence.
The castle had four floors and we were permitted to see three. As we entered we were given a short synopsis of the rooms and were permitted to wander about at our leisure. The main rooms of interest were the family apartments and the Princess Maria’s painting studio. We were pleased to see the Princess Marioara’s room was decorated with Mucha’s The Seasons.
(Dining Room – Pelisor Castle)
Depleted of all our cash we decided to take a 4:00 pm train back to Brasov. Peles Castle is really worth seeing but the experience leaves a lot to be desired.
Distance walked: 7.2 miles
