History, legend & heritage

A mountain fortress.
A royal home.

The story of Bran Castle, from a fortress on the Bran pass to Queen Marie’s home and Romania’s most famous legend.

Bran Castle on its rocky hill above the trees in Transylvania — Bran Castle on its rock above the village of Bran.

A fortress on the pass

In 1377 King Louis I of Hungary allowed the Saxons of Brașov to build a stone castle at Bran, at their own cost and with their own labour. Completed by 1388, it guarded the road through the Bran pass between Transylvania and Wallachia and served as a customs post.

A timber-framed veranda inside Bran Castle

A home for Queen Marie

In 1920 the city of Brașov gave the castle to Queen Marie of Romania. With the architect Karel Liman she turned the fortress into a royal residence, with furnished rooms, timber galleries and a park below the rock. She later left it to her daughter, Princess Ileana.

A museum and a legend

Romania’s communist regime took the castle from the royal family in 1948, and it later opened as a museum. In 2006 it was returned to Princess Ileana’s heirs. Its towers and its place on the rock are why many visitors know it as Dracula’s Castle, although Bram Stoker never visited Romania.