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Peleș Castle – Sinaia – ROMANIA
Peleș Castle (Romanian: Castelul Peleș) is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inauguration was held in 1883.
By form and function, Peleş is a palace, but it is consistently called a castle. Its architectural style is a romantically inspired blend Neo-Renaissance and Gothic Revival similar to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. A Saxon influence can be observed in the interior courtyard facades, which have allegorical hand-painted murals and ornate fachwerk similar to that seen in northern European alpine architecture. Interior decoration is mostly Baroque influenced, with heavy carved woods and exquisite fabrics.
Peleş Castle has a 3,200-square-metre (34,000 sq ft) floor plan with over 170 rooms, many with dedicated themes from world cultures (in a similar fashion as other Romanian palaces, like Cotroceni Palace). Themes vary by function (offices, libraries, armories, art galleries) or by style (Florentine, Turkish, Moorish, French, Imperial); all the rooms are extremely lavishly furnished and decorated to the slightest detail. There are 30 bathrooms. The establishment hosts one of the finest collections of art in Eastern and Central Europe, consisting of statues, paintings, furniture, arms and armor, gold, silver, stained glass, ivory, fine china, tapestries, and rugs. The collection of arms and armor has over 4,000 pieces, divided between Eastern and Western war pieces and ceremonial or hunting pieces, spreading over four centuries of history. Oriental rugs come from many sources: Bukhara, Mosul, Isparta, Saruk, and Smirna. The porcelain is from Sèvres and Meissen; the leather is from Córdoba. Perhaps the most acclaimed items are the hand-painted stained glass vitralios, which are mostly Swiss.
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Heroes Cross on Caraiman Peak – Romania
The Heroes Cross is a monument built between 1926 and 1928 on Caraiman Peak at an altitude of 2,291 m located in Romania, in the Bucegi Mountains of the Southern Carpathians. It has a height of 28 metres (92 ft) and the nearest town is Buşteni. The name of the monument is the Heroes Cross, but it is popularly known as the Cross on Caraiman.
Location and size
The Heroes Cross is located in the saddle of the Caraiman Mountains, on the slope to the Seacă Valley at an elevation of 2,291 metres (7,516 ft); it is unique in Europe, both by the location’s altitude and by the monument’s size. The cross itself has a height of 28 metres (92 ft) and two arms of 7 metres (23 ft) each. The monument was the tallest structure in the world situated at such an altitude. The width of the vertical pole is 2 metres (7 ft), the horizontal arms have a length by spindle pole of 7 metres (23 ft), and a square cross section with sides of 2 metres (7 ft). The cross is made out of steel profiles and is mounted on a pedestal of concrete clad with stone 7.5 metres (25 ft) high. Inside the pedestal is a room that originally housed the electric generator that powered the 120 light bulbs of 500 W each located on the perimeter of the cross.
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The Transfagarasan road starts (from south to north) in Curtea de Arges and goes up crossing the tallest Romanians mountains, called the Fagaras Mountains in our books or the Transylvanian Alps in foreigner’s references.
After a spectacular section where the Transfagarasan road fights with the mountain slopes like a huge snake searching for its prey, it ends beyond the Cartisoara village, melting slowly into the E68 (European road), about 45km/27miles east of Sibiu. If you are traveling from Bucuresti, you can take the A1 freeway into Pitesti, and then the DN7C (national road) toward Curtea de Arges.
The Transfagarasan road was built between 1970 and 1974 as a strategic military route. After the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, Ceausescu had it built to insure quick military access across the mountains in the event the Soviets attempted a similar move into Romania.
The road was built mainly with military forces at a high cost. They used about 6 million kilos of dynamite on the northern face (this is the most spectacular) and on the tunnel (about 0.9km/0.53miles long). About 40 soldiers lost their lives during the building of it.
Today, the Transfagarasan road is an attraction for travelers, mostly drivers and lots of hikers. Given its layout and altitude, it is generally only open from June to September.
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