Story
The story of Peleș Castle
While Peleș was being built, Queen Elizabeth described in her journal a joyful crowd of workers: Italian masons, Czech stone carvers, German and Hungarian carpenters, Turks burning brick, all singing, cursing and quarrelling in fourteen languages. King Carol I fell in love with this mountain scenery on his first visit in 1866, and the foundation was laid on 22 August 1873. German architect Johannes Schultz won the project with a more original plan than the copies of Western palaces the king had rejected; Karel Liman later added the towers, the main one 66 metres tall.
Peleș became the world's first castle fully powered by locally produced electricity. Its Royal Ball of Inauguration took place on 7 October 1883, and in 1893 the future Carol II was born here.
After 1947 the communist state seized the estate; it was declared a museum in 1953, but Nicolae Ceaușescu closed it from 1975 to 1990. Inside are over 170 rooms and an arms collection of over 4,000 pieces.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Sinaia
- Sinaia CasinoThe Sinaia Casino is located in "Dimitrie Ghica" park, Sinaia, Romania and was built at the initiative of King Carol I of Romania. Construction began in 1912 and was finished a year later.
- Pelișor CastleThe Pelișor Castle is a castle in Sinaia, Romania, part of the same complex as the larger castle of Peleș.
- George Enescu HouseThe Memorial House of George Enescu also known as Vila Luminiș is a Historic Monument located in Sinaia, Romania.
- Dimitrie Ghica ParkPark in Sinaia between the railway station and Sinaia Monastery, founded in 1881 and laid out by the landscape architect Eder.
- Sinaia MonasteryThe Sinaia Monastery, located in Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, was founded by Prince Mihail Cantacuzino in 1695 and named after the great Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt.