Peles Castle's Grand Armory

Photo: Curious Expedition [Flickr]

Curious Expeditions visited Castelul Peles (Peles Castle) in Sinaia, Romania. The castle was built by a multi-cultural "labor force" (forced labor?) and has an interesting history:

Castelul Peles rises out of the ancient Romanian forest like an fairy tale . Located in Sinaia, Transylvania it is arguably the most beautiful castle in Romania and possibly all of Eastern Europe. [...] As in its design, so too was its construction a mishmash of Europe, as Queen Elisabeth of Romania described the merry scene in her journal, “Italians were masons, Romanians were building terraces, the Gypsies were coolies. Albanians and Greeks worked in stone, Germans and Hungarians were carpenters. Turks were burning brick. Engineers were Polish and the stone carvers were Czech. The Frenchmen were drawing, the Englishmen were measuring, and so was then when you could see hundreds of national costumes and fourteen languages in which they spoke, sang, cursed and quarreled on all dialects and tones, a joyful mix of men, horses, cart oxen and domestic buffaloes.”

I’m quite fond of this photo above. It’s of the Grand Armory, or The Arsenal where 1,600 of the castle’s weaponry and armor from the 14th to 16th century are displayed.

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