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SINAIA |
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SINAIA , 122km from Bucharest, has been dubbed the "Pearl of the
Carpathians" for its magnificent mountain scenery and royal castle.
Though technically in the province of Wallachia, it has much in common
with the neighbouring Transylvanian towns and has been included for
convenience. Originally the preserve of a few hermits and shepherds, and
later an exclusive aristocratic resort, it's nowadays full of holiday-makers
here to walk or ski in the Bucegi mountains.
The town's train station is a historical site in itself; here the Iron
Guard murdered the Liberal leader Ion Duca in 1933, only three weeks
after he had taken office as prime minister. Steps lead up from the
station to a small park containing a casino, a museum dedicated to the
natural history of the Bucegi mountains, and two turn-of-the-twentieth-century
hotels, the Palace and the Caraiman - both fine neo-Brâncovenesc
buildings. Beyond the park, Strada Manastirii leads up to Sinaia
Monastery (open during daylight hours), built by the boyar Michael
Cantacuzino in 1690-95 on the site of an earlier hermitage, and so
called because it contained a stone he had brought from Mount Sinai. The
original church is not the one before you as you enter (which was built
in 1842-46), but hides through a passageway to the left.
Just behind the monastery, a road leads up to one of the most popular
destinations in Romania, Peles Castle (Wed-Sun 9am-5pm; $5). Set in a
large park, which is landscaped in the English fashion, the castle
outwardly resembles a Bavarian Schloss. It was built between 1875 and
1883 for Romania's imported Hohenzollern monarch, Carol I, and largely
decorated by his eccentric wife Elisabeta (better known as the popular
novelist Carmen Sylva, the "Romanian Sappho"), who once decreed that
court life at Sinaia be conducted in folk costume. Peles contains 106
rooms, richly decorated in ebony, mother of pearl, walnut and leather -
all totally alien to the traditional styles of Romanian art. There are
almost eight hundred stained-glass windows in the building, whose rooms
are stuffed solid with Persian carpets, Renaissance weapons, Murano
chandeliers, and copies of the Rembrandts and other paintings now housed
in Bucharest's National Art Museum. One Louis XIV room (with
pre-Raphaelite paintings) houses Romania's first cinema. How a man of
such reputedly austere tastes as Carol managed to live here is something
of a mystery.
Following the monarchy's demise in 1947, Peles was opened to the public,
with a temporary interruption when the Ceausescus appropriated it as a
"state palace". The Ceausescus actually preferred to stay in the Pelisor
Palace (Little Peles; Wed-Sun 9.30am-5pm; $5), a few hundred metres up
the hill, built in 1899-1903 for Ferdinand and Marie, Carol I's heirs.
Although its exterior is also in the German Renaissance style, the
interior is Art Nouveau, with Viennese furniture and Tiffany and Lalique
vases, and is much more to the taste of Western visitors. Foisor Lodge ,
a little above Pelisor, was the home of Prince Carol (later crowned
Carol II) and Princess Helen from 1921; here Carol met the Jewish Magda
Lupescu, who remained his mistress for thirty years and became the power
behind the throne, outraging Romanian society, which tended towards
anti-Semitism. Foisor park is open to the public (Wed-Sun 9am-4pm), but
the lodge, another former summer residence of the Ceausescus, is still
reserved for government entertaining.
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