Fairytale Castles Around the World

Bran castle, Translyvania Romania (the famous Dracula castle)

Peles castle, Sinaia Romania

What makes castle so intriguing to most people?

Perhaps, it is always associated with prince and princess living happily ever after in fairytales.

Perhaps, it is the grandeur.

Or perhaps, it is the symbol for most ancient cities.

Of all the castle I have visited before, Neuschwanstein remains my favourite and the most fairytale like castle. No wonder even Disney 'borrowed' the idea of their theme parks castle from this one.

Some of the famous castles from the places I visited so far..

Hmm.. I shall write another one of palaces next time.

Linlithgow castle, Scotland (birthplace of Queen of Mary Scots)

Edinburgh castle, Scotland

Alnwick castle, England (one of the famous Hogwarts filming location)

Kronborg castle, Denmark (the setting for Hamlet)

Frederiksberg castle, Copenhagen Denmark

Segovia alcazar, Spain (one of the Disney's castle inspiration)

Cordoba alcazar, Spain

Seville alcazar, Spain

Palais of Pena, Portugal (not exactly a castle)

Prague castle, Prague

Neuschwanstein castle, Germany (the famous castle of them all)

Wawel castle, Krakow Poland

Sinaia, Romania (13 Aug 2009)

From Brasov, we took a day trip to the nearby town called Sinaia. Sinaia is famous for the residence home for summer for King Charles of Romania. It is here that he built Peles Castle, the famous landmark for this town. The place is easy to get to via train from either Brasov or Bucharest (it's an almost 4 hour train journey from Bucharest to Brasov, which Sinaia is in between this two places).

After using some sign language to get our tickets and checking the train back to Brasov, we managed to reach Sinaia in the afternoon. We took s short hike up the hill to the famous castle and managed to catch the last English tour into the castle. Since we need to pay extra for taking photos inside the castle, me being a very kiasu auditor decided not to pay and not to take any photos of the interior of the castle.

However, the exterior of the castle was enough to feed my photographer's thirst and indeed the castle is an amazing architecture. Peles castle was considered by many as one of the most beautiful castle in Europe.

I love the paintings on the wall








A storm is clouding over

Transylvania, Romania (11-13 Aug 2009)

I am skipping a travel post on Bucharest because, there were nothing much to see there except the parliament plus Transylvania is a much more interesting place to write about. We reached Bucharest before dawn after taking a long and interesting bus journey. It was real funny to see my travelmate, being the only Asian guy in the bus (anyway we are the only tourists in the bus) to be drag out and dance in the bus..yes..they, the Romanians like to dance in the bus. Imagine our surprise, after passing the Bulgaria border and they invite us to dance. It was such a cool experience and the Romanians are super friendly people eventhough with their limited English. We had to resort using sign language but nevertheless, travelling to Romania is once in a lifetime experience.

Bucharest

Anyway, from Bucharest, we travel to the Transylvania county to a town called Brasov. Before Twilight and Vampire Diaries and the whole lot of vampire romantic stories started, the vampire Dracula legend actually started from Transylvania. Bram Stoker wrote his book on Dracula based on a prince from the Bran's castle (which is also the location for Dracula's lair). The whole Brasov town is very interesting to explore on foot with a giant Black church right in the middle of the old town.

the Dracula's legend

Bran's castle

Climb up to the Tampa panaromic for a view of the old town or travel to Bran for the infamous Dracula's castle. The bus to Bran leaves from the second main bus station and it was not expensive to travel there. The Bran town itself is quite small and the only main attraction is the Bran's castle aka Dracula's castle.

Brasov old town






















The Black Church











view from Tampa panaromic