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#4 Bran Castle
Bran Castle
Location of Bran Castle
It is believed that the castle was briefly held by Mircea The Elder of Wallachia (1386-1395, 1397-1418). The Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler; 1448-1476) does not seem to have had a significant role in the history of the fortress, although he passed several times through the Bran Gorge. Bran Castle was belonged to the Hungarian Kings but due to the failure of King Vladilas II (1471-1516) to repay loans, the city of Brasov regained possession of fortress in 1533. Up to the mid-18th century, Bran played a militarily strategic role. 1920– Kingdom of Romania became the royal residence in the castle. Then the castle was inherited by her daughter Princess Ileana who ran a hospital there in World War II. 2005– the Romanian government passed a special law allowing restitution claims on properties illegally expropriated, such as Bran, and thus a year later the castle was awarded ownership to Dominic von Habsburg, the son and heir of Princess Ileana. 2007– In September, an investigation committee of the Romanian Parliament stated that the retrocession of the castle to Archduke Dominic was illegal, as it broke the Romanian law on property and succession. However in October 2007, the Constitutional Court of Romania rejected the parliament's petition on that matter. In December 2007, the Romanian government issued a decision in reaffiriming the validity and legality of the restitution procedures used and confirming that the restitution is made in full compliance with the law. 2009– On 18 May 2009, Bran Castle administration was transferred from the government to the administration of Archduke Dominic and his sisters Maria-Magdalena Holzhausen and Elisabeth Sandhofer. On 1 June 2009, the Habsburgs opened the refurbished castle to the public as the first private museum of the country and disclosed with Bran Village a joint strategic concept to maintain their domination in the Romanian tourist circuit and to safeguard the economic base in the region. |