Leaving All Behind - Backpacking Around🌏🎒- Sinaia, Romania 🇷🇴 (Day 5) | Peles Castle 🏰 (Part 1)

Taking a train to Sinaia town (Prahova valley)

After exploring Bucharest city and some of its most famous places in the Day 4 of this Leaving All Behind series, I decided to take a train almost back to Brașov again to visit one of the The Seven Wonders of Romania: the famous Peleș Castle.

There is a 139 km. distance from Bucharest to Siania and the train ticket costs 50 RON (10 EUR).

*Tip: From the Sinaia railway station to the castle there is a 45 minuts walking up to the hill on a well indicated sign posts track, so try to wear comfortable sneakers and a light backpack.

On your way to the castle you'll cross the beautiful big Dimitrie Ghica Park, the old Sinaia Casino (1913) and plenty of market stalls on the street selling you souvenirs and diverse food.

Fire-grilled corncob - 4 RON (0.80 EUR).

Green walnuts, a very typical street snack around here (you have to remove all that yellow skin before eating them because it's very sour - 5 RON/small bag (1.00 EUR).

Almost arriving to the castle you'll also find the Sinaia Monastery (wich gives name to the town) with the oldest of its churchs dating from 17th century.

"Biserica Mare" (The Great Church, newest building) (1) - Dating from 1846.

"Biserica Mare" (The Great Church, newest building) (2) - Currently a museum, possesses a library with the earliest Romanian translation of the Bible, dated from 1668.

And after leaving the monastery behind everything becomes greener and greener and you start to see the castle in the distance, on a beautiful hill surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains.

The Peles castle (1) - A predominant German neo-Renaissance style with also some neo-Ottoman and neo-Rococo style touches.

The Peles castle (2) - View from the main trail.

The Peles castle (3) - The main central tower is 66 metres (217 ft) in height and the castle has a 3,200-square-metre (34,000 sq ft) floor plan with over 160 rooms.

YouTube video reaching the castle and explaining some fun facts while walking its main courtyard:

Reaching the castle.

Tourists walking around the main courtyard while taking pictures.

The Peles Castle was inaugurated in 1883 by the King Charles I of Romania (who was German) and the Princess Elizabeth of Wied (also German and first Queen of Romania) and took more than 30 years and 16,000,000 gold Romanian lei (approx. $120 million today) to finish its construction.

This castle was declared museum in 1953.

Dresden explaining fun facts close to the big fountain.

Back in the 19th century this castle was one of the most importants historical monuments in Europe and the most advanced castle in the whole world, being for example the world's first castle fully powered by locally produced electricity (its own power plant). It also had an elevator, central heating and even a vacuum cleaning system.

The very large palace gardens were closed to public.

Close up of the main tower (66 metres height).

The palace complex is in the unique enclave of Bucegi Natural Park and the palace gardens blend with the rest of the beautiful nature that surrounds them.

The castle was the summer residence of the royal family until 1947 and its 160 rooms are adorned with the finest examples of European art, Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass windows and Cordoba leather-covered walls, being each room decorated in different styles or themes.

*Tip: It's worth visiting the interior of the palace (50 RON - 10 EUR) and appreciate how King Carol I spared no expenses with the castle.

Dresden pointing to the museum entrance and recommending you paying the entrance fee.

Ticket Shop (there is an ATM just right there).

In the next article I'm showing you the inside of the Peleș Castle walking throughout all and each of its chambers.

Leaving All Behind series: Day 1, Day 2 (Part 1), Day 2 (Part 2), Day 3, Day 4.

Some photographs were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera and some others are screenshots of my videos.

YouTube video recorded with my GoPro Hero 8 camera.

(Audio of this video in Spanish).

Video recorded at 1440p 60 fps 4:3.

Image of the train trip to Sinaia is a screenshot from Google Maps.

Some sources on which I relied to give some accurate info about Sinaia Monastery and the Peles Castle: (1), (2), (3), (4).

Peles Castle and Romania tourism website.