Bran Castle is a medieval stronghold in the Transylvanian Alps in the Southern Carpathian Mountains of Brașov County in central Romania; it's popularly- if inaccurately- identified with the fictional Castle Dracula. Bran Castle remains one of Romania’s top tourist attractions.
=====================================================================(in Transylvania, a historic eastern European region, is now in Romania.) After forming part of Hungary in the 11th–16th centuries, it was an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire (16th–17th century) and then once again became part of Hungary at the end of the 17th century. It was incorporated into Romania in the first half of the 20th century. The region, whose name originally appeared in written documents in the 12th century, covered a territory bounded by the Carpathian Mountains on the north and east, the Transylvanian Alps on the south, and the Bihor Mountains on the west. The neighboring regions of Maramureș, Crișana, and Banat have also, on occasion, been considered part of Transylvania. In addition to its Hungarian and Romanian heritage, Transylvania retains traces of a Saxon (German) cultural tradition dating back to the arrival in the Middle Ages of a population of German speakers. Seven historically Saxon villages that feature well-preserved medieval fortified churches were inscribed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites between 1993 and 1999. (The historic center of Sighișoara, also a Saxon settlement, was inscribed in 1999 as well.)
+ In 1920, the city of Brașov turned Bran Castle over to Queen Marie of Greater Romania, who restored the castle as a royal summer residence and lived there both before and after the death, in 1927, of her husband, King Ferdinand I. She also built the castle’s principal modern outbuilding, the Tea House, which later became a restaurant. Marie died in 1938, and her daughter, Princess Ileana, was forced out of the country by the new communist regime in 1948. Communists opened the castle to the public as a museum in 1956. Ileana died in 1991, and the post-communist Romanian government handed over the castle to her son, Archduke Dominic of Habsburg, in 2009. (The castle continued to operate as a museum.)
+ When Austria-Hungary was defeated in World War I, the Romanians of Transylvania in late 1918 proclaimed the land united with Romania. In 1920 the Allies confirmed the union in the Treaty of Trianon. Hungary regained some two-fifths of Transylvania during World War II (but the entire region was ceded to Romania in 1947). Bran Castle also hosts some atmospheric events around Halloween.
+Bran Castle holds visitors in thrall. An industry has sprouted around Dracula’s Castle, though connections to either the historical Vlad Ţepeş or Bram Stoker’s fictional vampire are thin. The liberties taken with Bran’s reputation are quickly forgotten on a visit: you’ll climb up its conical towers, admiring views over thick forest, and stroll through creaky-floored rooms furnished with bearskin rugs and 19th-century antiques.
