Peleș Castle, along with the smaller Pelișor Castle, also built for the new Royal Family of Romania, is currently on Romania’s Tentative List for the UNESCO World Heritage List, with work in progress to officially nominate them. The Romanian Ministry of Culture is preparing the necessary documentation to meet the criteria for outstanding universal value, authenticity, and integrity, a process that began in early 2024. As we in Manitoba know it is a very vigorous process.
After Carol became King of Romania, he had a lot of responsibilities. He wanted to establish a stable monarchy. But he also loved his wife, Elizabeth. After they were married, he learned that she would be unable to have children. His advisors urged him to divorce his wife, or annul the marriage as Henry VIII had done in England, but he refused. He said the next in line in his family could be monarch after he died. But the first two in line both refused. They did not want to live in the civilizational backwater of Romania. Even being a monarch was not incentive enough for them to make the move. Maybe being a monarch is not such a good thing after all. So, they turned to the 4th in line to the throne, his nephew Ferdinand, who was sufficiently compliant. He did it because he was told to do it. For the good of the family. He became King Ferdinand I and ruled until 1914.
King Carol I was an avid collector of weaponry. His personal collection numbered about over 4,500 items, enough to start a pretty major war. Over 400 European and Oriental pieces dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries are on display at Peles armory. The prize of the collection is a knight and his horse armor that weighs 265 lbs.
According to UNESCO,
“With its unique artistic, architectural, landscape and technical features, the Royal Residences of Sinaia represents the cradle of the new dynasty, an imposing monument symbol of the state’s independence and its modernisation. Also, with the use of eclectic historicism in architecture, interior and exterior decorations and of cópies of internationally renowned works of arts and architecture, Carol I and the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family aimed to legitimise themselves in their adoptive homeland located at the “Gates of the East”, as well as to raise Romania’s prestige on the international arena.”
UNESCO also pointed out that, because the site was continuously used as the domain of the king and his family, what used to be a small village in the mountains of Transylvania became a modern town in the mountains with many private villas most of which adopted the style of the king and queen. These included “regal entourage” and luxurious hotels, a casino and a park, as well as a unique railway station that put Sinaia on the Orient-Express and Arlberg-Express international train voyage routes which until then comprised cities such as London, Paris, Vienna, Istanbul, Milan, Zürich, Budapest or Athens. In this way, as UNESCO said, “the construction and use of the royal domain directly contributed to the development of a modern and highly complex urban landscape within a mountainous region.”
UNESCO also considered its treatment by the Communist Party, during its reign important:
“After the Communists instituted the republic at the end of 1947, they confiscated all private properties throughout the country and numerous historic residences were destroyed or severely transformed. However, the entire former royal domain at Sinaia is one of the few examples in the country where the property remained mostly unaffected, suffering only minor modifications. Thus, the Peleș castle was transformed into a museum, the Pelișor castle into a house for artists and members of the Communist party, the Foișor castle into a residence/guest house for the Communist leaders and many of the former annexes were transformed into hotels and guest houses.”
The castle remained in use as a royal castle until the Communist Party put an end to such in 1947 just about the time it ended the monarchy.
Now it has become a museum and a big tourist attraction.
The triptych altarpiece shown in my photograph dates to around 1450. The scene is from the Passion of Christ. It is the most ancient triptych in Romania.
