Made famous by Bram Stoker as the home of Dracula, Bran Castle is not known to have ever been the home of Vlad Tepes, the character Dracula is based on.
The first wooden fortification was probably built by Teutonic Knights early in the 13th century. In 1377 Louis I of Hungary issued a document allowing the building of a stone fortification. The castle played an important strategic role as it overlooks the mountainous passage which connects Transylvania and Wallachia.
In 1920 the castle became a royal residence, a favourite place of Queen Marie of Romania. She left the castle to her daughter, Princess Ileana. In 1948 the castle was seized by the communist regime. After a long legal battle, as is the case with many properties confiscated by the communists which the state is slow to return to their rightful owners, the castle returned under the administration of the Archduke Dominic von Habsburg and his sisters, Maria-Magdalena Holzhausen and Elisabet Sandhofer, Princess Ileana's children, and is now a private museum.
