Let's travel together #58 - Corvinilor Castle (Castelul Corvinilor)

I've always prefered outdoors adventures, but from time to time it's also nice to discover some indoors places too.
Each one has its own story, so today we are going to turn our attention to
Corvinilor Castle - and find out its mystery. 🏰

Corvinilor Castle, also known as Hunedoara Castle or Huniazilor Castle is located - as its name says - in Hunedoara, Romania and it's one of the most attractive castles from Europe keeping alive the legend of Transylvania.
Huniazilor Castle is one of the most Gothic monuments from Romania, occupying an important position into Top 10 - The most fairy places from Europe.
The castle is also the biggest medieval construction from our country having a double function - both civil and militar.
For about 400 years, the castle had a very tumultuous life as you will see through the pictures along this post and the history that rests in this place but awakens our souls once we discover it.

Corvinilor Castle is represented by a raven which keeps into its beak a gold ring.
As every castle hides a love story between a prince and a princess - The Castle from Hunedoara also has one.
The legend says that the raven is symbolizing the love between Iancu de Hunedoara (the son of Sigismund de Hunedoara which was the king of Hungary) and a young lady called Elisabeta.
As a sign of appreciation, the king of Hungary offered to the teenagers a gold ring for their love.
Unfortunately, the ring is stolen by a raven which gets attracted by the shine of the beautiful jewel but this event is solved by Iancu which doesn't wait for too long and grabs a bow and arrows and shots the raven recovering the gold ring.
Due to his brave gesture, his father decides that the bird is the perfect symbol to represent the story of their royal family being completed by the meaning of the raven from the Middle Ages which was symbolizing wisdom & longevity.
The name of the family of honor is Corvin where "Corvus" in latin means "Raven" - this being a beautiful coincidence but also how Corvinilor Castle got its name.

While you are exploring the castle, you will get through numerous towers where the fighters were hiding during the battles but also from where they were shooting.
According to some historical documents
in 1784 thousands of people came in Corvinilor Castle to stay hidden by the rebels being estimated around 3000 refugees.
There are even rumors about Vlad Tepes who lived in the Bran Castle from Brasov - that he has been kept in a prison from the castle for around 7 years.

INFORMATION THAT COULD AFFECT YOU EMOTIONALLY: In the castle was a executioner who's job was to decapitalize the prisoners or to even skin them alive.....

In the following pictures I will present you different methods of torture along with inside hidden information.

THE THORN CHAIR

The chair was most often used by the Spanish People, but it was a method that was also used in our country. Every singe chair was including around 1500 nails entering very deeply into the flesh of the tortured prisoner. The chances of escaping were impossible because of the nails that practically were keeping the hands locked deep into the thorns, the movement being limited by pain. There were even weights added to get more into sharp edges..

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THE SKINNING ALIVE

Being skinned alive it was originated and used in the Middle Ages, the method being used as torture for those who were opposing to the orders.. The method was practiced by an executioner who was using a knife starting from the face, the victim usually dying before the tyrant reaches the skinning of the abdomen..

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THE TORTURE BED

The torture bed reprents one of the most popular methods used in the Middle Ages. The bed involves a gripping system where the body of the victim is stretched to the maximum until his wrists are literally breaking. Even though the method is very cruel, there were even more solutions to torture the prisoner worse...

Some of the torture rooms have special sound effects attached which detects when a visitor comes into it, screaming echos getting starting instantly. It's incredible how both realistic and awful the howls and the marrionettes are. I could never imagine how terrible some people died a few hundreds of years ago - it literally leaves you speechless..

As you can see in the picture from the right, the castle is not in one of its best appearance being caught by 3 fires throughout its existence - the worst one being caused by a lighting bolt on 13 April 1854.
This is the reason why most of the castle is very shaky but these events are just contributing to make the story of it become even more interesting.
But I would still recommend you to better be careful at stairs and furniture.

The castle is on 28 km away from Hațeg and to reach this place you can either:

• drive along DN7 if you come from: Pitești, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Deva or Arad.
• drive along DN66 if you come from: Tg. Jiu or Petroșani.
• drive along DN68 if you come from: Caranșebeș.

All these roads are leading you to Simeria from where you will find a lot of touristic signs which will guide you to Corvinilor Castle (also known as Hunedoara Castle or Huniazilor Castle).

The gates are open to visitors according to the following schedule:

• Monday: 12.00-17.00
• Tuesday: 9.00-17.00
• Wednesday: 9.00-17.00
• Thursday: 9.00-17.00
• Friday: 9.00-17.00
• Saturday: 9.00-17.00
• Sunday: 9.00-17.00

There are also different taxes that you have to be aware of:

Parking Fee: 5 RON

Entrace Fee:
-> Adults: 20 RON (for the following months: January, February, November, December)
25 RON (for the following months: March, April, September, October)
30 RON (for the following months: May, June, July, August)
-> Students: 5 RON
-> Pensioner: 10 RON

Photo Fee: 5 RON

Video Fee: 15 RON

Guide Fee: 30 RON for Romanian language
50 RON for a foreign language

(Source: http://www.castelulcorvinilor.ro/info-vizitatori/)

As always. I hope you enjoyed our time spent together and you had fun in our little trip.
A study shows that the castle is visited by a lot of tourists from all over the world, in 2014 about 230.000 visitors passing the gates to explore this beautiful place and find out its story.
So what do you think?
Maybe you are the next one contributing on this beautiful number of guests.😃

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