Corvin Castle (Hunedoara)

Corvin Castle (Castelul Corvinilor), 18 km south of Deva in the steel town of Hunedoara, is the most spectacular Gothic castle in Romania and the principal reason most travellers come to this part of Transylvania at all. The fortress was built in the fifteenth century by John Hunyadi (Iancu de Hunedoara), the Hungarian regent and father of King Matthias Corvinus, on the foundations of an earlier keep.

The castle has it all: a long wooden bridge over a deep ravine, conical pointed towers in slate, a Gothic Knight's Hall with rib-vaulted ceilings, a chapel with original frescoes, and the deep well allegedly dug by Turkish prisoners over fifteen years. It is heavily restored — perhaps too heavily for purists — but the silhouette and the setting are extraordinary. Allow two to three hours.

things to do sight castle architecture day trip
A story
Vlad the Impaler — the historical inspiration for Dracula — was reputedly held prisoner here for seven years in the fifteenth century in a tower he is said to have decorated with frescoes that survived until the nineteenth century. The castle's silhouette, with its long timber bridge and pointed conical towers, is the single most recognisable medieval building in Romania.