Castles for sartorias

[ellarien]

Romania was late getting a monarchy; the first King, imported from Germany built Peles, with all the late-nineteenth-century modern conveniences, with his private fortune. The inside is amazing but not allowed to be photographed, but the outside gives the general flavor. More in the Flickr set here.









Bran is a much older castle, medieval Saxon, vaguely associated with the notorious Vlad Tepes aka Dracula for the purposes of the tourist trade. It was given to Queen Marie by a grateful nation after WW1; the revolution destroyed most of her furniture, but they've tried to reconstruct the general impression with similar pieces from elsewhere.

More here..





Warwick was an easy train-ride away when I was in Birmingham, many years ago now. I apologize for the poor quality -- between cheap cameras, cheap film and bad light, there isn't a lot left. It's a medieval castle again, one that mostly survived the 1640's Civil War and was still in use as a stately home at the turn of the last century. The Victorians didn't live in the towers and dungeons, of course, though they left them intact, but in more modern suites of rooms attached to the old Great Hall, so the visitor gets a flavor of two very different eras. (There's a real basement dungeon and torture chamber in one of the towers.) The castle opens pretty much into the top of the main street in the little town, with the railway station at the far end, if I remember right. Oh, and there are peacocks in the gardens.