Sinaia – the Heart of the Carpathians

Summer is here, and especially for those of you who’ve already explored most of the interesting corners of Bulgaria, I’m going to tell you about one of my favourite places in neighbouring Romania – Sinaia, and in particular the magnificent Peleș Castle. Although Sinaia is an 8-hour drive from Sofia, it’s the perfect place for a weekend trip. Romania is a country packed with tourist attractions and sights, and we’re only just starting to rediscover it.

The mountain resort of Sinaia, also known as the pearl of the Carpathians, is home to one of the most beautiful castles in Europe – Peleș Castle. The town is 130 km from the capital, Bucharest, and the castle was built as a summer residence for Romania’s King Carol I. You have to visit it to understand why it’s so special, both to Romanians and to foreign visitors. From early morning, queues snake along the walls of this exquisite former royal summer residence, and entry is just 20 lei, or 4 euros.

King Carol I, under whose rule the country won its independence, visited the area in 1866 and fell in love with the beautiful mountain scenery, which reminded him of the Alps. In 1872 the monarchy bought 1,300 sq km of land near the Piatra Arsă river and commissioned a royal hunting reserve and summer residence, and on 22 August 1873 the castle’s foundation stone was laid. The castle stands on a hill in the Carpathians, once crossed by a medieval route linking the regions of Carpathia and Wallachia. Building the residence took 40 years, and the Neo-Renaissance building was finally completed in 1914. In my opinion, Peleș Castle is the most beautiful of Romania’s castles, perhaps because of the mix of styles the architects combined in the building and its furnishings.

The first three designs were copies of existing palaces in Western Europe, so Carol rejected them as unoriginal and far too expensive. The commission went to the German architect Johannes Schultz, who came up with a more original plan that suited the king’s taste: a lavish large villa in Alpine style, but one that also combined features of other classic European styles, mainly following Italian elegance and the aesthetics of the Bavarian revival. The architect Carol Benesch joined the project, and in the final stage so did their Czech colleague Karel Liman, who designed the towers, including the 66-metre-high central one. Liman also built the nearby Pelișor Palace (1889–1903), the ‘little Peleș’ – the future residence of Crown Prince Ferdinand I and his wife, Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

The 40 years of construction are estimated to have cost 16 million Romanian gold lei (around 120 million dollars in today’s money). Between 300 and 400 people worked on the building. Queen Elisabeth of Wied, Carol I’s wife, wrote in her diary: ‘The Italians were the masons, the Romanians built the terraces, the Gypsies were the apprentices. Albanians and Greeks worked the stone, Germans and Hungarians the wood, the Turks fired the bricks. The French were the draughtsmen, the English took the measurements. They talked, argued and sang in 14 different languages and every dialect imaginable.’

Carol and Elisabeth lived in the hunting lodge until Peleș was finished, just as Ferdinand and Marie lived in Pelișor. In 1893 the young couple’s son, Carol II of Romania, was born in the castle, giving it the meaning of ‘the cradle of the dynasty’, as Carol I called it.

The castle covers 3,200 sq m and has 162 rooms, which is modest by European aristocratic standards. But to the modern eye, used to different yardsticks, the extravagance is unlike anything you’ve seen. The young Romanian monarchy was determined to put itself firmly on the world map, so it spared no expense or effort. The rooms are decorated with motifs from every culture on the planet. The decoration varies by theme according to each room’s function (studies, libraries, armouries, picture galleries) or style (Florentine, Turkish, Arabic, French), and everything has been finished with precision down to the smallest detail. There are 30 bathrooms.

The building holds one of the finest art collections in Europe: statues, paintings, furniture, weapons, gold, silver, coloured crystal, ivory, porcelain, tapestries and carpets. The hand-painted stained-glass windows are especially precious. A statue of Carol I stands opposite the main entrance. It’s the work of the Italian sculptor Raffaello Romanelli, who also created 7 of the garden terraces, most of them in Carrara marble.

The king’s study has a secret door into the library and an elegant alcove for audiences lasting more than 10 minutes. It’s also home to the famous portrait of Queen Elisabeth with their little daughter, who died of typhus at the age of four. After her death, the royal couple adopted their nephew Ferdinand to secure an heir. Remarkably, unlike other royal families in Europe, Carol and Elisabeth really did share a bedroom.

Visits to the palace are by guided tour only – you can’t wander through the rooms on your own. There are tours covering just the ground floor, and a fuller one taking in the ground, first and second floors. Visiting hours are 9:00 to 17:00 from Wednesday to Sunday, and 11:00 to 17:00 on Tuesdays. It’s closed on Mondays.

Sinaia Monastery

After visiting Peleș Castle, don’t miss the chance to drop in at Sinaia Monastery. The monastery complex is made up of two churches – a small old church in Byzantine style and a newer one in typical Romanian architecture. The old church was built in 1695 by Mihail Cantacuzino. The aristocrat had been deeply moved by his pilgrimage to St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt. On his return home, he set about building a monastery in the Romanian Carpathians and named it after the holy mountain in Egypt – which is where the name of the town that later grew up around the monastery comes from.

You won’t need more than 15 minutes or so to get round the monastery complex. The monastery courtyard is a lovely spot, and if there aren’t big crowds of tourists, you can take your time enjoying the view of the mountain slopes peeping out from behind the monastery walls.   

Romanian food

After every long walk comes the time for something tasty to eat. Romanian food is definitely very close to ours, so I’m sure you won’t go hungry. Local restaurants have rich menus. I know 90% of Bulgarians associate Romania with mămăligă (a traditional Romanian dish made from cornmeal), but their cooking is actually pretty varied. Local food is strongly influenced by the Balkan traditions of the neighbouring peoples – Serbs, Bulgarians, Turks and Hungarians. I highly recommend trying Romanian stuffed cabbage rolls (sarmale), the Romanian version of our kebapche grilled mince rolls (mici), and tripe soup, one of the main local specialities. And for dessert, of course, there’s the calorie bomb called papanași – similar to our buhti doughnuts – served with cottage cheese and blueberry jam. Heavenly!