The Peles castle was built by the first King of Romania, Carol I of Hohenzollern – Sigmaringen, between 1873 and 1914. By 1883, the year of its inauguration, it was used as summer residence. Between 1890 and 1914, under the supervision of the Czech architect Karel Liman, considered the main architect, the castle was transformed and enlarged. Decoration: in the first shape (1883), both exterior and interior stylistic dominant is provided by the German neo-Renaissance style with two exceptions, the neo-Ottoman and the neo-Rococo styles. In the second stage (1890-1914), fundamental changes to the volumes, façades and interiors enriched the previous stylistic range, adapting the castle to the stylistic pluralism of Historicism.

Bram Stoker’s character, Dracula, is a Transylvanian Count with a castle located high above a valley perched on a rock with a flowing river below in the Principality of Transylvania. This character is often confused with Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), sometimes known as Vlad Dracul, who was a Walachian Prince with a castle, now in ruins, located in the Principality of Wallachia. Because Bran Castle is the only castle in all of Transylvania that actually fits Bram Stoker’s description of Dracula’s Castle, it is known throughout the world as Dracula’s Castle. Chapter 2, May 5 of “Dracula” describes the Count’s castle as “. . . on the very edge of a terrific precipice . . . with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm [with] silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”