Bran Castle - Bear Sanctuary - Dambovicioara Cave

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Bran Castle – Bear Sanctuary – Dâmbovicioara Cave

Near the Natural Reservation of Piatra Craiului Mountains, in Zărnești Town, Libearty Bear Sanctuary shelters around 100 brown bear specimens, on a 69 hectares piece of oak forest. This makes Libearty Bear Sanctuary the biggest brown bear reservation in the world. The bears are rescued from cruel and improper conditions from zoos, circuses or are wild specimens which have endeavored to close to human settlements.

To visit Dâmbovicioara Cave, we leave the main road for a small incursione into the narrow and winding mountain roads passing through the village of Sirnea. The oldest known description of the caves was made by Joanne Fridvaldszky, a Jesuit scholar who lived in Cluj, he writes a book in 1767 titled „Minero-Logia Magni Principatus Transilvaniae”.

Around 1955, a group of speleologists from Brasov cleared the entrance into the cave. During these excavation they found bones of Ursus spelaeus, an extinct species of cave bear that lived in Europe and Asia around 26.000 B.C.

Bran Castle built as a customs point on the most traveled merchant road linking Transylvania to Wallachia, Bran Castle stands on a 60 m high cliff overlooking a narrow mountain crossing. It was buit between 1378 – 1382 in a Gothic architectural style. Due to it’s placement and similarities to the description in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, Bran Castle becomes the legendary Castle of count Dracula. The name of the famous vampire, Dracula, is associated to the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler the bloody despot of 15th century Wallachia, who is surrounded by many other legends and stories.

On 1st of December 1920, Bran Castle, was received by Queen Marie of Romania. Seven year later it became a royal residence, it was the favorite retreat of the Queen. The castle was inherited by her daughter Princess Ileana and it was later seized by the communist regime. Today Bran Castle is a “the Rockstar” of the Romanian tourism being the most visited sight from Transilvania.

	Private tour
	History & nature focus
	Duration ~ 10 h
	Included: Transportation & Guiding
	Skip the queue
	Distance ~ 150 km
	Pick-up / drop-off at your location in Brasov
	On request different location picking up point (e.g. your hotel in Bucharest)