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Roadtrip in Romania: Corvin Castle

The next stop was Corvin Castle  also known as Hunedoara Castle in Hunedoara.

It was built in 1446 and is one the biggest castles in Europe and one of must-see-place in Romania. It was also announced as one of the best fairy-tale looking castles by Huffington Post. It looks magnificent and is all you can wish for in a castle.

The entrance for a student was really low (5lei – around 1Euro). You can find more about prices and opening hours on the castle’s website.

There was also a possibility to rent a tablet with an audio guide. For me it was perfect as it didn’t have too many boring facts (it wasn’t throwing thousands of dates that I would forget in a second ) but kept it short but really interesting, so I actually listened from the beginning till the end.

A tour around the castle takes around 1-2 hours, depending on how long you want to stroll around.

Unfortunately there are not many pieces of furniture inside as the castle was burned twice, deserted for a while and transformed a lot. However even without them the castle is a real deal 😉

There are couple interesting legends surrounding this castle:

Raven and golden ring

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The legend says that Iancu of Hunedoara, who commanded the construction of the castle, was an illegitimate son of Sigismund of Luxemburg, the king of Hungary. Upon his birth, he was given a golden ring, so when he gets older he would be recognised by the king. When he was a kid a raven stole that ring. He went outside and shot it with an arrow straight to the heart. After that episode it was decided that the raven would be his coat of arms.

Vlad the Impaler

It is rumoured that Vlad the Impaler was held captive in the castle for seven years and that made him go insane. However that story was never proven to be true.

The well

In the castle yard there is a well. It is said that it was dug by Turkish man who were taken as prisoners. They were promised that after they were done digging the well they will be set free. What they did not know, was that the castle was built on a solid rock, so it took them 15 years to finally reach the water. Unfortunately meanwhile Iancu of Hunedoara has died and his wife did not keep the promise. As a dying wish they have engraved : You have water, but you don’t have a heart. This inscription was however translated by specialists to He who wrote this is Hassan, prisoner of ghiaurs in the fortress near the church.

 It took us ~3 hours to get there with a car from Cluj-Napoca. There was a parking lot 5 minutes walk away from the castle.

When we left Hunedoara we stumbled across amazing houses of rich gypsies. They looked like castles themselves but we didn’t know how the owners would react to us stopping and taking the pictures so I just took some while we were driving. Nonetheless they looked really cool!!


+ Must see!!

+ One of the best looking castles I’ve been to.

+ Audio guide was really good with a lot of interesting facts.

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