The Calendar Castle

With 365 windows, 52 rooms and 7 terraces this is a unique building in Romania. Located in Transylvania, the edifice’s architecture combines Gothic and Renaissance elements and stands out not just with its design but also with the story of its construction.

The castle sits on a hill close to the Zau de Campie locality. Besides the number of windows equal to the number of days in a year, the number of rooms to that of the weeks, it also has four towers, as the number of seasons. The castle was built by baron Istvan Ugron, then the ambassador of Austro-Hungarian empire to Russia, to prove his love to one of the daughters of tsar Nicolay II of Russia.  The princess however had great demands about how opulent and luxurious the castle should be and the baron couldn’t undertaken them financially. Their relationship came to an end as the tsar’s family was assassinated by the Bolsheviks and the baron donated the property in 1925 to Istvan Banffy.

During communism, the castle was taken over by the state and in time had various uses: a TBC sanatorium, a school, a grain deposit and, in recent years, an orphanage. The furniture of the castle was confiscated and transferred to Turda, the county capital.

The state of the construction, which is on the list of historical monuments and part of the Mures county council patrimony, is deteriorating each day. Attempts by the followers of baron Urgon have been made at recuperating ownership of the castle, together with lands in Zau de Campie.

How to get there:

If you plan to reach Zau de Campie, you can take the DN1/E60 and DN13/E60 as shown here.

Photo source: Tetcu Mircea Rares/ Wikipedia