From Brasov: Full Day Visit To The Castle Bran And Bear Sanctuary

When you decide to visit Romania, Transylvania is a must.
With a rich history and lots of old building, you will learn more about the past and present of this place.

Located on the southern part of Transylvania, Brasov is one of the most spectacular Romania towns. Its history goes back 800 years when the Saxons start colonizing this part of Europe and they built in this area to start the seven cities.
The first name of Transylvania was ‘Sieben burgen land’ or The land of the 7 cities because there were exactly 7 cities build back then by the German-Saxons.
Brasov was one of them. It was built in 1235 on the foot of Tampa Mount and and was originally named Kronstadt (The Crown city).

Its name became quickly famous all over Europe and not only also because it was for centuries the junction of the commercial roads between East and West.
Many rich merchants were traveling every May to sell their merchandise in Brasov, which increased its economy and became not only famous but also a very rich town. Its richness attracted lots of thieves and not only. The Turkish sultans were craving for tacking over this town. It did happened several times in its tumultuous past. In 1421 the leader of the Ottoman Empire, Murad II, conquered the old borgo and forced the people from Brasov to move on top of Tampa.

Luckily for them, at that time the governor of Transylvania was Iancu de Hunedoara, a feared man who lost only one battle against the Ottomans in Kosovo. He traveled to Brasov and bought back the city from the Turkish Sultan and ordered the city to be rebuilt even stronger then before. Two parallel walls of about 2 miles long were build around it with 14 towers in between. Two of them are still standing: The White and The Black Towers and 7 bastions that were given to each of the 7 main guild (craftmen) in town to use in time of peace and help defending the town in time of war.

Bear Sanctuary or Libearty Sanctuary in Zarnesti , Brasov County, counts today almost 100 bears gathered from all over the country from the closed zoos, circuses and monasteries where they were used for taking pictures with the tourists. A few years back the Council City of Zarnesti donated almost 60 hectare of land where this ONG started moving bears from the whole Romania.

They started with two and now they have almost 100. All brown bears except one a big black Asian bear. They organize themselves and live exclusively on tickets sales, merchandise and donations. It is not easy for people working here thinking that the animals eat daily anything between 1.5 to 2 tones of meat. It is an life time experience visiting the sanctuary specially in the winter because you can see bears playing in the snow. Majority of the bears here are born on captivity and are used to human presence so don’t go to ‘sleep’ for the winter. Truly an experience that you are going to talk about for a very long time.

Last part of our journey is Bran Castle. According to the Irish man Bram Stoker, the house of Vlad III Dracula ( Vlad the Impaler), a ruthless Romania king who lived on this part of Europe more than 500 years ago. Build in 1377 by the Saxon nobles under the supervision of Ludovic D’Anjou, king of Hungary at the time, its purpose was mainly to stop first the Tatar hordes and later on the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. This phenomenal medieval structure was for centuries THE GATE of EUROPE in times of war and it was successfully used as Custom House in times of peace, thing that brought lots of money in to Empires budget at the time. The Castellans did a great job collecting money from anybody passing through: from just normal travelers to rich merchants.

After 1878 the fortress was abandoned for almost 100 years when the Queen of Romania and Maria started a massive restoration of this imposing medieval edifice.