Hunyad Castle Hunedoara

Hunyad Castle, or as it is sometimes named, Hunedoara, is located in the the southeastern Transylvania region of Romania near the Poiana Rusca Mountains. Let’s start with a bit of a story about our first trip to the castle.

We, a group of expats, did as any expat is sure to do – we packed our bags and made our way around the country learning all we could learn and seeing all we could see. Although we tend to do very little planning before a road trip (this ensures we fly by the seat of our pants and not “pre-judge” any sites) we did however make it a point to go see Hunyad Castle. The reason was simple. In the pictures on the internet the castle simply looks stunning. It looks like a castle should. It could just as easily be a medieval castle used as a basis for happy fairy tales or it could be a site of pure evil. It looked like it could go both ways – likely leaning towards the eerie side.

So on our map it was, and our road trip began. We meandered our way to the town of Hunedoara and upon arrival were slightly confused. The town was absolutely not what we expected.

You see, Hunedoara is actually a very industrious mining town. As you come up over the highway, cresting the top, you get a brief view of the town ahead. You truly believe you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere – as this simply cannot be the setting for such a castle. This one-hundred square kilometer city is seemingly full of warehouses and “appearingly” abandoned factories. We didn’t go in any of them for fear of being attacked by industrious werwolves are the occasional hidden vampire bat.

Back to reality though, Hunedoara was literally the home of the largest steel industry in the Balkans, so what you see here are remnants of that. The effect of the city was something straight out of a “haunted” movie – so accurate our feeling that upon a later date we found out that Hunedoara and Hunyad were to be featured in the movie Ghostrider II starring Nicolas Cage.

So we worked our way through this town, attempting to find the road that lead to the castle. The castle no longer sits atop a mountain so it is difficult to locate from the town itself (you can’t exactly drive “towards” it). Indeed we drove past the unrecognizable entrance and made our way up a hill out of town. It was then that we could look down and see the castle off in the distance. We saw the entrance and where it stood, so back we went.

Arriving at Hunyad, we parked the car at the entrance and wandered up what was once the true drawbridge. This takes you over a slight moat (more of a small ravine) and into the castle.

Upon entering, you’re taken back to the 1300’s. A central courtyard with multiple rooms, wings, and hallways. There is a true uncomfortable sensation that you get when entering some of the rooms, and reading the stories on the placards may give you some indication as to why. Hunyad was not a nice place to be. From prisoners such as Vlad The Impaler to diggers of a well that – as legend has it – dug to the bottom to reach water and were left their by their keepers.

Ultimately, a visit to this castle is a MUST while in Romania.