Cetatea Fagarasului

 

I had to share this with you! Monday we had zone conference in Arad and then were scheduled for appointments all day Tuesday. Unfortunately, the appointments cancled and we left a day early. Since we had to travel to Brasov for another zone conference on Wednesday, we now had an extra day to get there. We decided to explore a little and found this castle in Fagaras. It was so fun! We spent the night in a little inn and the next morning we went through the castle. Romania has many old fortresses and castles. The fun thing about exploring them is that they are not commercialized yet. What you see is what you get! They are trying hard to update and rennovate many of them but it costs lots of money and they haven't had the resources to do this very much. Things are changing though and I think we will see a lot more tourists and tourist sites in the future.

 

Hundreds of years ago this was a big fortress but by the 1500 - 1600's this castle was given to a queen by her husband to be a lavish residence for her. The castle has a huge mote all the way around it and is completely surrounded by a big, thick wall.

 

Today this is used as a "city" building. There is a big library in the castle (and many school children went in and out the library while we were there), a museum and a restaurant in the huge cellar. We climbed up on the walls and saw remnants of a life lived long ago. The walls are about 8 feet thick. In the courtyard was a big stand where you would hang a person! We had a great time touring this and chalked it off as one of our few "Preparation" days.