Hunting Museum of Posada

Romania has a long history of hunting. The country remains a remarkable hunting destination, drawing many a hunters because of its large numbers of brown bears, wolves, wild boars, red deer, and chamois. The concentration of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in the Carpathian Mountains of central Romania is largest in the world and contains half of all Europe's population, except Russia.

Today, dedicated hunting museums exist, like the small Hunting Museum of Posada (Rom: Muzeul Cinegetic Posada), belonging to city of Comarnic, in Prahova County, Muntenia, hosting nationally celebrated writer Mihail Sadoveanu's collection. Mention should be made here of the fact that the first National Hunting Museum was created in 1931, in the Carol I Gardens of Bucharest. At that time it was the second cultural establishment of this kind in Europe.


African Trophies

The opening of the Posada Hunting Museum of the Carpathians, in 1996, throws a bridge to the Romanians’ hunting traditions. Unfortunately, after more than ten years the museum as well as its priceless collection, was destroyed by a fire. The Hunting Museum of Posada displays, in a most adequate arrangement, varied hunting exhibits, including impressive collections of trophies, works of arts, specific hunting tools characteristic for several stages of human development.


Lynx

Like in any other museum, experts have created and ennobled specific atmosphere of the place with some ingredients such old furniture, tiles, floor lamps, valuable glass and crystal objects. Together they can be admired - but not photographed - tapestries, carpets, paintings, silverware, ceramic from Austria, Germany, China etc., many of them suggesting hunting pursuits. Of course, the museum could not deprive hunters hunting specific items arsenal of weapons used over time to hunt - spears, crossbows from 17th century, swords, musketry, rifles, modern shotguns, beautiful knives, other hunting items.


Brown Bears

True galleries of art, the halls of the museum catch the visitor’s eyes both thanks to the considerable number of exhibits and the distinct personality of each piece, from the ebony and ivory forest of roe deer and stag horns, to the comprehensive panoply of wild boar fangs or the harmonious, rich pearly quality and color contrast of roebuck horns.


Wild Boars

From the category of predators stand out the furs of wolf, lynx, bob cat and, above all, bear, giving an inkling of the vigor and number of these populations of wild animals. The art of hunting finds thus a formidable expression in the Hunting Museum of Posada that puts forth numerous assets of this occupation in Romania against a backdrop of genuine aesthetic and cultural emotion.


Deer Trophies

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Panoramas by Michael Pop, from www.360trip.ro.

Iulia Hasdeu Castle

The Iulia Hasdeu Castle is a folly house built in the form of small castle by historian and politician Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu in the city of Câmpina, Prahova County, Romania.

The only descendant of Hasdeu family was Iulia, a prodigy child, born on 14th November 1869 and dead eighteen years later, on 17th September 1888 from an unmerciful tuberculosis. At the age of 11 she graduated at "St. Sava" Gymnasium and the Music Academy of Bucharest (piano and canto). As a pupil of the "Sévigné" College of Paris, where she continued her secondary school studies, Iulia aroused her teacher's admiration for her brilliant intelligence. She took private lessons in drawing, painting, piano playing and canto. She continuously wrote poems, prose and theater plays. At 16, she attended the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at "La Sorbonne" in Paris. Meanwhile, Iulia attended courses at the School of Higher Studies in Paris. Her literary creation was to appear posthumously, under her father's careful watch, at "Hachette" Paris, in three volumes.

Deeply affected by his daughter's death, an event that dramatically shook and changed his life, Hasdeu started in 1893 to build a castle on a small piece of land in Câmpina. He claimed that his belated daughter provided the plans for building the castle during sessions of spiritualism (which took much of Hasdeu's imagination and time after Iulia's death). The building was completed in 1896. The castle is built based on the magic numbers 3 and 7, having, for example 3 towers, 3 underground rooms and steps formed of 7 steps each.

The ceiling of the main tower

The main entrance to the castle is a huge door made of stone, supposedly fixed on a diamond bearing. On the outside of this door is written the sign of Hasdeu's family and two texts: first is "pro fide and patria"(for God and country) and second is "e pour si move" ("nevertheless it moves") which encourages visitors to press this door of stone, which is easily opened and permits entrance to the castle. The door was sided by two stone thrones, on which there were carved Iulia’s main seven reincarnations, the twelve laws and the Pythagorean symbols (the pentagram and the seven circles). On each throne there was a woman sphinx, guardian of the entrance. Above the door there was the Eye of the World, and on the crenels one could read a date: July 2, the day when B.P. Hasdeu used to symbolically celebrate his two Iulias: his wife and his daughter.

The lateral doors had grids that symbolized the Sun; therefore they were painted in yellow and green-shaded blue. The exterior covers were provided with stained glass painted in the same shades, and above them there were two symbols: the cross in vertical position and beneath it the crescent in horizontal position. The windows of the Castle also had grids and stained glass intersected by a cross, and in the interior, on both sides, there were parallel mirrors. The role of the parallel mirrors is symbolic: with their help, all that get through there is infinitely re-created.

The ghosts' table

Inside, the monument is decorated with a fresco and marble, in various colors. In the tower from the left of the edifice there are the guest hall and the living room, both rooms being decorated with capital columns. In the living room there are the family portraits, painted on the wall, surrounded by laurel crowns. In the tower from the right, there are: the scholar’s office, the dining room and the room for the spiritualist sessions.

Chairs made for ghosts

The mural painting of the first two halls has flowers as main element, and they are the most lighted rooms during the day, because the Castle is orientated towards North, the right tower towards East and the left tower towards West. The room for the spiritualist sessions was obscure and on the walls there were painted symbols: an angel’s head, a triangle, a butterfly (as noticed in a photo of the original mural painting) and, most probably, other undiscovered symbols. Nowadays, the mural painting of this room hasn’t been restored.

A spiritualist manuscript and some ectoplasm photos will satisfy the curiosity of the visitor who asks himself how Hasdeu talked to his dead daughter. Through direct automatic writing, using cultured mediums, B.P.Hasdeu was receiving answers to questions related not only to Iulia's spirit, but also to his father's, Alexander, and to his grandfather's, Tadeu.

Sometimes, the written communications were reinforced by photographic sessions, the scientist being a pioneer of spiritualist photography in Romania. Since 1994 the Iulia Hasdeu Castle has been housing the "B.P.Hasdeu” Memorial Museum which displays furniture, personal belongings of Hasdeu family, photos and original documents, manuscripts, Hasdeu's reviews, many pictures made by Nicolae Grigorescu and Sava Henţia.

The study room of B.P. Hasdeu

From "B.P.Hasdeu" Memorial Museum, The Alexis Project. Photos by Adrian Gheorghe.

Peleş Castle

Peleş Castle is considered by many one of the most beautiful castles in all Europe. It is a Neo-Renaissance castle placed in an idyllic setting in the Carpathian Mountains, in Sinaia (44 km from Braşov and 122 km from Bucharest), in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia.

King Carol I of the Romanians (1839–1914) first visited the region and future site of the castle in 1866, when he fell in love with the rugged but magnificent mountain scenery. So, in 1872, a total of approx. 1,300 acres (5.3 km2), was purchased by the King and Piatra Arsă region becomes The Royal Domain of Sinaia, destined to be a royal hunting preserve and summer retreat for the monarch. The building of the castle began on August 22, 1873 under the direct order of the Viennese architect Wilhelm Doderer and was continued in 1876 by his assistant, Johann Schultz de Lemberg. Because of the the Independence War, between 1877-1879 the works were abandoned. That's why the castle was inaugurated only on October 7, 1883. Several other buildings, annexed to the castle, were built simultaneously: the Guard's Chambers, the Economat Building, the 'Foişor' Hunting Chateau (with 42 rooms, designed in the Swiss style), the Royal Stables. The power plant was also constructed then, and Peleş became world's first castle fully operated by electric power. The 'Şipot' Villa was constructed later. To the initial castle the Czech architect Karel Liman added, during 1896-1914, Pelişor, a small castle with 70 rooms.

Between three and four hundred men worked consistently on it. Queen Elisabeth of the Romanians, during the construction phase, wrote 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".

The castle was built in wood, stone, bricks and marble and comprises more than 160 rooms. The representative style used is German Renaissance, but one can easily discover elements belonging to the Italian Renaissance, Gothic, German Baroque and French Rococo style. Peles is surrounded by seven terraces decorated with statues (sculptured by the Italian Romanelli), stone-made-wells, ornamental vases in Carrara marble. The architects used an abundance of wooden decoration, both for the exterior and for the interior of the castle, which confers a very special quality to the building. Quite outstanding are the Big Armory Room, the Small Armory Room, the Florentine Room, the Reception Room (where paintings and wooden sculptures depicting 16 castles of the Hohenzollern are exhibited), the Moorish Room, the French Room, the Turkish Room, the Council Room, the Concert Room as well as the Imperial Suite.

Other exquisite attractions such as the statues, the ceramics, the gold and silver plates, the Meissen and Sèvres porcelain, the Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass windows, walls covered with Cordoba leather, ebony and ivory sculptures, as well as the extensive weapon collections are worth mentioning. It is also important to know that Peleş Castle shelters one of the most important and most valuable painting collections in Europe, almost 2.000 pieces.

Peleş Castle has 3200 sq. meters of floor plan, over 170 rooms, 30 bathrooms, many with dedicated themes from world cultures (in similar fashion with other Romanian palaces), themes that can vary by function (offices, libraries, armouries, art galleries) or by style (Florentine, Turkish, Moorish, French, Imperial) all extremely lavishly furnished and decorated to the slightest detail. The establishment hosts one of the finest collections of art in East and Central Europe, consisting of statues, paintings, furniture, arms and armor, gold, silver, stained glass, ivory, fine china, tapestries and rugs; the collection of arms and armour has over 4000 pieces, divided between Eastern and Western war, ceremonial or hunting spreading over four centuries in history. Oriental rugs come from the finest sources: Bukhara, Mosul, Isparta, Saruk and Smirna, porcelain from Sèvres and Meissen, leather from Córdoba but perhaps the most acclaimed are the hand painted stained glass, mostly Swiss.

Almost adjacent to Peleş Castle is Pelişor ("Little Peleş"). King Ferdinand, who succeeded Carol I, intended to use Peles Castle as a summer residence. Supposedly he found Peleş too big and overwhelming, so he commissioned the smaller, Art Nouveau style, Pelişor Castle. Pelişor's 70 rooms feature a unique collection of turn-of-the century Viennese furniture and Tiffany and Lalique glassware.

After King Michael's forced abdication in 1947, the Communist regime seized all royal property, including the whole Peleş Estate. The castle itself was opened as a tourist site for a short time. It also served as a recreation and resting place for Romanian cultural personalities. The castle was declared a museum in 1953. During the last years of the Communist regime, between 1975–1990, Nicolae Ceauşescu closed the entire estate. The only persons permitted on the former royal estate were maintenance and military personnel. The whole area was declared a State Protocol Interest Area.

After the December 1989 Revolution, Peleş and Pelişor Castle's were re-established as heritage sites, open to tourists. Today, the Foişor Castle serves - like in the past - as a presidential residence, unlike the rest of the estate. The Economat Building and the Guard's Chambers Building are now hotels, restaurants and terraces having been established as well. The rest of the Peleş Estate became either tourist villas or state protocol buildings. In 2006, the Romanian Government announced restitution of the castle to King Michael I of the Romanians, the former monarch. Soon after re-obtaining the property, negotiations began between the former King and the Government and Peleş once again became a national heritage site open to the public as a historic monument and museum. In exchange, the Romanian Government granted 30 million euros to The Royal House of Romania. The sum for the remaining villas and surrounding chalets and chateaus are still being negotiated but will eventually remain in possession of the state and touristic circuit after repurchasing (2007). Every year since opening, Peleş Castle received a half million visitors every year. Of the 168 rooms in the castle, only 35 are accessible to the public. While an important area is in the upper levels, this is off limits. Only the museum in the basement and the rooms on the first floor can be visited.

After Wikipedia, Braşov Travel Guide, and other sources.