Peles Castle wasn’t somewhere high on my list to visit as it isn’t really a castle at all. It is a royal hunting lodge/summer palace in the Carpathian mountains and we visited because we were also going to the nearby monastery.
Visiting Peles Castle
Peles Castle is well signposted and is a popular tourist attraction. We visited on a Sunday so it was particularly busy! There is plenty of parking nearby and Sinaia Monastery is very close by too.
My Experience
We had rented a house in Bran for a week as part of our Romanian road trip, detailed in my blog here. We visited Sinaia Monastery and then took a scenic 5 minute walk along a wooded path to reach Peles Castle. The castle is modern, finished in 1914 I think and more of a palace than a castle. The gardens were very pleasant although we didn’t go inside as we were too late for the last guided tour.
A better description of the castle is on the Romanian Tourist Board site:
“Commissioned by King Carol I in 1873 and completed in 1883, the castle served as the summer residence of the royal family until 1947. Its 160 rooms are adorned with the finest examples of European art, Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass windows and Cordoba leather-covered walls. King Carol spared no expense.
Peles Castle was the first European castle to have electricity, it even has its own power plant.
The Castle has hot and cold running water, central heat and central vacuum system.
The stain glass roof of the foyer opens mechanically and there is a small elevator for the royal family.
Each room is decorated in a different style or theme.
There is a Concert Hall, Music Room (India), Turkish Salon, Great Salon (Italy),
Council Room (Switzerland), Moor Hall, and so much more.
The Royal Library has a secret door
and the castle’s 60-seat Theater, with royal box, showed the first movie projection in Romania in 1906. The castle draws its name from neighboring Peles Creek, which passes right through the courtyard.
The furniture in the Music Room is carved of teak, a gift to King Carol I from the Maharajah of Kapurtala in India, while handmade silk embroideries adorn the ceiling and walls of the Turkish Salon.
The ceiling paintings and decorative frescoes in the Theater Hall were designed by the renowned Austrian artists Gustav Klimt and Frantz Matsch.
Over 4,000 European and Oriental pieces dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries are on display in the armories.”
Peles Castle Photo Gallery
History
The construction of Peles Castle was commissioned by King Carol, and on August 22, 1873, the foundations were laid in the form of a hunting house and a summer retreat for the Romanian royal family. The castle was designed by the German architect Johannes Schultz in a Neorenaissance style that combined numerous features of classic European styles.
Besides the castle, other constructions were erected, such as a power plant, the Economat Building, the royal stables, the guards’ chambers, and the Foisor hunting lodge. Later additions were also built between 1893 and 1914 by the Czech architect Karel Liman.
Peles became the first castle in Europe fully powered by locally produced energy, with the electric system being completed in 1884 and the central heating system in 1897.
The castle was completed in 1914, and it remained a royal residence until 1947.
After the forced abdication of King Michael I, Peleș was seized by the Communist regime in 1947, together with all the properties of the royal family. In 1948 the whole estate was closed, and numerous pieces of art were moved to the Art Museum in Bucharest. Peles Castle was then opened as a museum in 1953 by the communist regime, and it remained so until 1975 when it was closed again due to its advanced state of deterioration. Between 1975 and 1989, the castle was constantly renovated and was also used by the communist regime as a retreat for the heads of state that visited Romania. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the castle was once again opened to the public, and in 2007 it became the property of King Michael.
Today, Peles castle receives annually between 250,000 and 500,000 tourists.
References
The history above is copied from the Rolandia.eu site here.
The Wiki site here is an excellent reference source