IMG_7043 - The current owners are Dominic Habsburg-Lothringen, and his sisters, Elisabeth Sandhofer and Maria Magdalena Holzhauten.
IMG_7044 - The family gallery. From 1533 the castle belonged to the city of Braşov. In 1920 Queen Maria of Romania restored it as a summer residence.
IMG_7046 - In 1948 the Communists expelled the royal family and seized the castle. It was returned to the descendants in 2006.
IMG_7047 - Bran fortress was built by Saxons in 1377 on the site of an earlier Teutonic wooden fortification, built to guard the pass.
IMG_7049 - In June of 2009 the Habsburgs opened Bran Castle as a private museum in collaboration with Bran village.
IMG_7051 - A Teutonic knight's robes. The Teutons were Saxon or Hungarian, not Romanian, and were banished in 1225.
IMG_7054 - This staircase entrance, originally hidden behind a stove, gave a quick escape directly from the first to the third floor.
IMG_7059 - Looking back down the escape stairway toward its entrance on the first floor
IMG_7060 - The exit from the escape stairway into Queen Marie's music room
IMG_7061 - A large cozy nook beside a stove
IMG_7073 - Customs houses here watched for invaders and levied a 3% tax on merchants coming from Wallachia into Transylvania.
IMG_7074