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00:00Palaces, the most spectacular and lavish homes on earth.
00:12Luxuriously designed for the royals who wanted the biggest and the best.
00:18Behind the golden gates of these royal megastructures are incredible stories waiting to be discovered.
00:25Infamous monarchs from history and the artists, designers and engineers who turned their grand visions into a reality.
00:35These are the most opulent, flamboyant and innovative royal residences around the world.
00:44This time, Peles Castle in Senaia, Romania is a magical palace full of contradictions.
00:52Although it looks medieval, the Victorian-era castle was built to include all the latest technology.
01:00Peles is more than just a building. It symbolizes the birth of a new European nation, making it one of the world's greatest palaces.
01:11Peles Castle is a fantastical masterpiece that took 40 years to create.
01:29Romania's first monarch, King Carol I, filled it with secret treasures and secret passages.
01:39Against the odds, Peles has survived war and revolution.
01:44The story of the castle is the story of Romania itself.
01:48His royal highness, Prince Radu, is married to Margareta of Romania, the head of the royal family.
02:05Prince Radu has written a book about the history of Peles Castle, which was built for King Carol I at the end of the 19th century.
02:12One of the reasons it's so intriguing, the place is because it's the result of the huge contrasts.
02:22It looks very classic and it's very young. I mean, the first stone was laid in 1875.
02:29So there is no way to compare that with the castles in France, in Germany or in Britain or even in Russia.
02:34But the whole thing looks very classic simply because he did not want a fantasy.
02:39He wanted just something to fill up the gap that Romania was obliged to face as developing a little bit later than the Western world.
02:50As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the palace was technologically well ahead of its time.
02:56Another thing to say about Peles is that it benefited from the most extraordinary technological inventions of the time.
03:05Having electricity in early 1880s, having all sorts of inventions in the construction itself, materials, machines,
03:15and also the fact that it reflected mostly his state aspirations than private tastes.
03:22At the turn of the 20th century, when other palaces in Europe were relying on traditional maintenance methods,
03:31Peles was in a league of its own.
03:34This machine, built in 1900, is a massive vacuum cleaner system for the whole castle.
03:41The building didn't only include electricity, which was remarkable for the time, but it also included an inbuilt vacuum system with a pump installed in the basement which when turned on would produce vacuums in tubes distributed all over the building into which you would plug the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner locally and thus you could clean the floors and carpets of the building.
04:04And remarkably, as these systems were notorious for breaking down, this one worked extremely well.
04:12In fact, the large scale vacuum cleaner is still in working order today.
04:17Dana Voicescu has taken time out from her role as head of public relations at Peles to demonstrate.
04:24At the same time, this system is very modern in our days.
04:35Because all the noise and all the activity that generates this system is located in the subsol, in the known camera of the aspirator.
04:47The vacuum pumps are connected to scores of intake sockets dotted around the castle.
05:11The vacuum pumps are currently turned into the surface, and the function is activated by this button,
05:26helping the smoothness of the square surface that needs to be fixed.
05:31The vacuum pumps have made then a large space to be system in the surface,
05:38These air holes are located in every chair of this space, of the corridors, and the tubes used are of large length to ensure the entire surface.
05:59I love the idea that you don't have to carry a big piece of machinery around with you, and you can just walk around with your little attachment and a tube, and you could hoover anywhere you liked.
06:12It was groundbreaking technology in a country that hadn't even existed 50 years before it was installed.
06:23In the mid-19th century, the map of mainland Europe looked very different.
06:29Three mighty imperial states dominated the landscape.
06:33The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
06:40Sandwiched between these mega powers were the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia.
06:47From them, a new country emerged.
06:51Modern Romania was born in 1859 with the uniting of two principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, and they'd been part of the Ottoman Empire.
07:00But in 1877, Romania gained independence as an independent state from the Ottoman Empire.
07:06This brand new country was in need of a ruler.
07:10The new Romanians wanted a king as ruler, but he had to be someone of royal blood, and that meant he had to be someone from outside the country.
07:18There were various candidates considered, but in the end, Napoleon III of France suggested Carol, a German prince.
07:27Carol was a military man who soon came to dislike the more informal traditions of his new home.
07:33He was shocked by the cultural differences between his childhood areas and Romania.
07:42It is said that the first gift he gave to the politicians close to him was a watch, because they were never on time.
07:52It was shocking also for the Romanian aristocrats to face suddenly a cold king who was not open to their gossipies and influences and interest.
08:05And it is said, for example, that he didn't like to fully shake the hand with anybody.
08:11He was offering one, two, three, maximum four fingers, depends on the level of interest or the closeness you had with the prince.
08:21Carol was cold, but well connected.
08:24The world's most famous monarch thought highly of the young ruler.
08:28There are letters from Queen Victoria keeping him in a hugely great esteem and admiration.
08:37Some of the letters of Queen Victoria are completely touching.
08:41You can hardly recognize her because she's really enthusiastic about this young head of state.
08:46The young Carol had no intention of being a mere puppet king.
08:51He wanted to forge the country in his own image.
08:55Carol was not the first choice. Indeed, he was quite far down the list of candidates.
09:00But he turned out to be an excellent choice as king. He was devoted to the job.
09:03He was determined to be a good king. And his wife actually said that he wore the crown in his sleep.
09:10When Prince Carol came, he came with a plan.
09:13He came with a plan to transform this little principality in a modern European state.
09:21One of Carol's priorities was to build himself a palace, a grand residence where he could spend the summer.
09:30In the late 1860s, Carol made frequent visits to a monastery near the village of Sinaya and fell in love with the area.
09:38Carol wrote to his father after a stay in Sinaya, staying in this place is good for us.
09:45And with each day that passes, my desire to build a summer residence grows even stronger.
09:51So he immediately started to build a castle, not that much for his own comfort because he was a very severe person with himself and with the others.
10:00But to host what was so important in those times to host, which was the state occasions, and to show to the monarchs, heads of state of the empires around, that Romania matters.
10:13It's important to understand that it was a statement, the new king, the new ruler of Romania, made in front of Europe, in front of the Ottoman Empire, and not less important in front of the Romanian people.
10:29A royal residence was a daunting commission for any architect.
10:39In 1872, the first king of Romania, Carol, chose one of the finest in Europe.
10:46The respected German architect, Wilhelm von Doderer.
10:50Work began on what would soon be known as Pelesh Castle in late 1873.
10:59But Doderer and his men soon encountered a major problem.
11:06Once they designed the building, they started to set out the foundations, which turned out much more problematic than hoped.
11:12It was an unusually high rainfall, and as they began to excavate the foundations, the site deteriorated into mud.
11:19Today, we see a very nice open area, which strikes the visitor from the very beginning.
11:28But the time when the area was discovered, of course, it was a swamp, it was a forest.
11:34In order to get to the less saturated or wet soils at the top, the workers dug down much deeper into the rocky subsoil to try and find a much stronger base to place these foundations.
11:45The problem with this, however, was that in that digging, they managed to unearth a number of really powerful natural springs.
11:54And these springs in turn started gushing out and making the layers of soil wash away.
12:00And what they had to do was to intercept these springs, direct the water elsewhere into channels that they made, allow the land to dry out a bit, and then they could go in and put the foundations.
12:14Architect Dodora used a new method of construction when building the castle's five-metre-deep foundations.
12:21Traditional foundations had merely been trenches built into the earth and filled with stone or brick.
12:31Concrete foundations had advantages in that you could shape them to fit the landscape, and you could reinforce them to take much higher stresses.
12:41In August 1875, King Carroll finally laid the foundation stone of his new palace.
12:50He declared a hope that this place become the cradle of our country's dynasty.
12:56But the foundation work alone had eaten up half of the king's budget.
13:02So in 1876, the king sacked his architect, Wilhelm von Dodora, and replaced him with his assistant, Johannes Schultz.
13:11He was from Lemberg, modern-day Lviv in the Ukraine, and he was also very ambitious, and he created the initial plans for the castle's construction from 1875 to 1883.
13:26He provided a beautiful design, which is also quite cost-effective.
13:30Carol and Schultz employed scores of Romanian carpenters and masons, but also craftsmen from abroad.
13:40This was to be an international collaboration.
13:43At any one time you could hear 14 different languages, 14 different types of national dress.
13:49It was this incredible melting pot of different nationalities.
13:54The palace that these workers were creating would not have been out of place in medieval Europe.
14:00The choice of a medieval-style building is very deliberate to say something about what they thought a palace should be.
14:08It should hark back to an earlier era.
14:11It should point to a continuing culture, a culture of knights and chivalry.
14:18Although stylistically the building looked to the past, modern techniques and materials made Pelesh easier to build than a medieval castle.
14:28Not only could they use the traditional materials of stone and brick and timber, and these are obvious from the castle facade,
14:37but they could also use steel and concrete, which had just come in as major building materials in the previous decades.
14:44With steel and concrete, you could make much bigger spans.
14:48You didn't have to worry so much about the shape of the things you were building.
14:51You knew you could achieve them.
14:53After almost a decade of construction, the castle was finally finished.
15:00The moment when the palace castle was opened, which was in the autumn of 1883, was again a statement created by the king.
15:12It was a huge ceremony here at the castle.
15:16Politicians were brought from Bucharest, diplomats, special guests were invited.
15:21There were organized festivities here in Sinai.
15:25I will describe the palace castle as a wonder in the middle of a beautiful area in the mountains,
15:34as a dream of the first king of Romania to create a modern residence
15:40and to impose himself the first king of a new independent country.
15:46The palace was an extraordinary mix of styles, both outside and in.
15:53The interior style of the spaces is as extravagant and fantasy-driven as the exterior,
16:03everything designed to attract the attention and impress the visitor.
16:08The place is hectic, has a lot of styles and especially in furniture,
16:13in the collection of fine arts and porcelains and all that.
16:18An interior designer would be unhappy.
16:21The distinctive look of the palace castle is no accident.
16:26King Carol had decided how he wanted his palace to look, many years in advance.
16:33In addition to coming back in Romania,
16:35in Romania, Regele Carol intreprinde foarte multe călătorii de studiu,
16:39atât în Europa, în marile orașe culturale europene,
16:44cât și în spații exotice, precum Asia sau Nordul Africii.
16:50La fel procedează și în cazul arhitecților și decoratorilor pe care îi angajează.
16:56Aceștia sunt trimiși în călătorii de studiu și de cercetare,
17:01motiv pentru care mare parte din interioarele de la castelul Peleși
17:07sunt inspirate din interioare aflate în reședințe europene consacrate.
17:13One of the classic examples of outside inspiration is the Arab influenced Moorish room,
17:23built in the early 1890s.
17:27Destinată ceremoniilor oficiale,
17:31sala aceasta a fost inspirată din decorația palatelor Alhambra, Spania.
17:39There is also a Turkish room,
17:42a reminder of the influence on Romania from its large neighbor to the south,
17:46the Ottoman Empire.
17:48There was no residence and you could look, for example,
17:51in the castles in France without a little Turkish room.
17:55In the case of the palace castle,
17:57we have both this Moorish and Turkish.
18:00And there are area also of relaxation, of calm.
18:06Oriental culture was also part of the Romanian culture,
18:09so creating a German style, let's say, a palace,
18:13I think this was a little touch to connect it with the Romanian society
18:18and traditional culture, I would say.
18:22The new castle soon became one of King Carol's favorite homes,
18:26and that of his queen, Elizabeth.
18:29And that of course,
18:32we have to say that Peleșul,
18:33a functioned as a regal of the summer,
18:36a couple of Carol Elisabeta.
18:39Regele obiștuia să vină la Sinaia,
18:41însoțit de întreaga curte.
18:44Trebuie să spunem că demnitarii,
18:47ministrii,
18:49soțiile acestora,
18:50care aveau propriile lor locuințe la Sinaia,
18:53se deplasau aici.
18:55Sinaia, devenind a doua capital a României,
18:58un loc de villegiatură,
19:00foarte important,
19:02tocmai datorită amplasării aici,
19:05are ședinței de vară.
19:07So it was really the headquarter of the monarchy
19:11for usually, let's say, six months per year.
19:16During the summer months,
19:18the king and queen could enjoy one of architect
19:21Johannes Schulz's finest creations,
19:23the Royal Library.
19:26Completed in 1883,
19:28it was a way for Carol to show off his breadth of interests.
19:32Sala adăpostește 700 de titluri din colecția regală,
19:38care număra peste 30.000 de volume,
19:41cărți de beletristică, de istorie, de artă,
19:45de artă militară, cărți de medicină și, bineînțeles, cărți religioase.
19:50But in the library,
19:52all is not what it seems.
19:54A secret passageway,
19:56that is no longer accessible,
19:58kept the king separate from his subjects.
20:02Al doilea raft,
20:03este ușa secretă.
20:05Aici nu sunt cărți, ci doar coperte de cărți.
20:09Ușa se deschidea pe vremea regele Carol I
20:12prin apăsarea acestui buton în interior.
20:16În spatele ușii, regele Carol adăpostea seiful său,
20:21dar totodată exista o scară în spirală
20:26ce comunica la etajul întâi al castelului Peleș,
20:30în apartamentul regal.
20:32PeleÈ™ Castle has a number of secret passageways
20:35and these were built into the castle
20:38basically so that the king didn't have to bump into people
20:41he didn't want to meet.
20:42I think the fact that they'd thought about it
20:44and they knew that they wanted those secret passageways
20:47incorporated into the design right from the beginning
20:50would have made it structurally much, much easier to build in.
20:54It soon became clear that PeleÈ™ Castle was too small
20:59for the king and his court.
21:01The task of expanding the castle in 1893
21:05was given to the Czech-born architect Carol Lehmann.
21:09He was a very, very talented man
21:13who actually devoted the whole of his life to the royal family.
21:16Lehmann would do his best to turn Carol's architectural dreams into reality.
21:22Almost every day the two would meet in Lehmann's office on site
21:26to discuss their plans for PeleÈ™.
21:31Lehmann nu doar că mărește suprafața la sola castelului Peleș
21:37prin adăugarea unor camere, dar redecorează interioare,
21:41înalță turnul principal al castelului cu un etaj
21:45și unește corpurile celor două clădiri
21:49din care se compunea inițial castelul Peleș,
21:52aripa adjutantilor și partea de castel propriu-zisă.
21:58King Carol's wife, Queen Elizabeth, was a poet and a writer.
22:03For her, PeleÈ™ needed to have culture at its heart.
22:07The result is one of the finest examples of Carol Lehmann's work.
22:12On the first floor in PeleÈ™ is a rather marvellous concert hall,
22:16which is influenced by the Renaissance style of the English country house,
22:20Hatfield House.
22:21It's got the same panelling as Hatfield House,
22:24but also what's great is that the French artist, Le Comte de Nuit,
22:29he did a portrait of Queen Elizabeth,
22:31so she looks down onto the concert audience.
22:35The concert hall is still used to this day to host jazz and classical performances.
22:41When PeleÈ™ castle was built in the late 19th century,
22:46King Carol I insisted that it was equipped with the latest technology,
22:50so it could function efficiently.
22:53PeleÈ™ may look like something from the Middle Ages,
22:56but in its day, it was a thoroughly modern palace.
23:00I was looking today to the castle and I realized that it expressed very much the personality of Carol,
23:09at the same time very much connected to history, to old passion,
23:13but also very open to modernity.
23:16And I think these parts are visible definitely inside the castle.
23:23One room, above all, represents King Carol's ambition.
23:29It is a main reception room known as the Hall of Honor.
23:35Fără îndoială, regele Carol a pus în castelul Peleș
23:40și în decorația interioară, o parte din sufletul său,
23:45aici.
23:46Hallul de onoare de pildă, prin întreaga decorație, vorbește despre oricinile sale germane,
23:51prin galeria de strămoși și prin statuile care reprezintă strămoși.
23:57The main hall is, in many respects, the most symbolic part of the house.
24:03It is the place where he and everyone else until us receive the most important guests.
24:10Yes.
24:12Capetele încoronate ale Europei erau invitate aici la castel
24:17să participe la recepții, să participe la partide de vânătoare și la flimbări pe munte.
24:27Întotdeauna Sobru drept, îmbrăcat în uniformă militară,
24:32el își aștepta oaspeții în mijlopul sălii.
24:38The Hall of Honor contained a high-tech surprise for Carol's distinguished guests.
24:44When they were ready, he would show them the heavens.
24:49One of the really lovely features about the Hall of Honours
24:52is that they don't have conventional windows around the room,
24:55so instead what they've done is to create this glass ceiling over a part of the room.
25:01And this glass ceiling is quite stunning, so when you look up you see a layer of stained glass,
25:06but in fact above the layer of stained glass is another glass ceiling as well.
25:10Now these are actually retractable, so initially you would manually winch it open,
25:16so you could open up the stained glass layer, let more light in,
25:21and then you could even open up the second layer of glass,
25:24and what that did was open up the room to the elements so you could get nice fresh air.
25:29And eventually they changed that opening system to being run by an electrical motor.
25:35There was no practical purpose to the retractable glass ceiling,
25:38it was merely an item for show.
25:40Mysteriously, a ceiling could retract to show you the real sky,
25:44no doubt the ore of the guests assembled below.
25:53The reason I think that they actually had the two layers of glass
25:56is that the outer layer of glass was the load-bearing glass, the structural glass,
26:00the thing that would actually take the weight of the pounding rain or the snow
26:04or any other weather elements that affected it,
26:08because the stained glass itself being more of a piece of art,
26:12wouldn't have been able to withstand the weather in the same way.
26:16The retractable roof is just one example of many modern technologies deliberately put into the building.
26:21This was a very early building with electricity,
26:24and the electricity not only enabled the roof, but was also used for the lighting.
26:31King Carroll's enterprising engineers used a natural resource to provide the castle's electricity.
26:38اد
26:40Pa Reiului PeleÈ™
26:41Apa P рыului Peleș
26:42izvorăște
26:43din apropierea castelului PeleÈ™
26:46din munți.
26:49Este o apă pură
26:52clară
26:53și
26:54datorită
26:55diferenței de nivel,
26:57de altitudine
26:59ea căpătă putere
27:01venind la vale
27:03cu o forță puternică.
27:05However, it was necessary to regularize and create manual of these cascades,
27:15to ensure the necessary pressure of the turbines.
27:24The power plant was designed to complement the architecture of the other buildings in the area.
27:29It also had another practical function.
27:33Its first floor had accommodation for less important guests at the castle.
27:38The power plant was built in 1884 with the assistance of engineers from Austria.
27:45Over 130 years later, it's still going strong.
27:52Here you can see the original turbines and the original operating system.
28:00Centralia mai functionează.
28:02Sigur că au rămas numai două grupuri funcționale
28:07și ea este racordată la Sistemul Național de Asigurare a Curendului Electric.
28:15Ea reprezintă, pe de o parte, o dovadă a istoriei tehnicității în România și, totodată, o dovadă a valorificării a tot ceea ce Regele Carol I a adus în România.
28:35In order to ensure the turbines worked efficiently and to keep water flowing at a consistent speed,
28:42a balancing tank was built.
28:47A valve stops water from flowing too quickly into the turbines.
28:53The backwash created flows up into the balancing tank,
28:57which equalizes the pressure before releasing the water gently back into the system.
29:04The electricity the power plant produced achieved spectacular results.
29:09The effect of the lighting both inside and outside the castle was so extraordinary that visitors said that the castle looks like a Christmas tree.
29:24And there was an innovative way of staying warm during the cold winter months.
29:29Heat was provided by a central heating system that sent hot air to vents in the floors and walls of the palace.
29:38Not only did it include electricity, it also included central heating,
29:44which doesn't sound particularly remarkable today, but was very unusual at the late 19th century.
29:49Most houses not installing central heating until the middle of the 20th century.
29:53The central heating consisted of a boiler which was coal-fired in the basement,
29:56which was used to heat water and air.
30:00The air was fed through ducts through the walls and the floors and the ceilings and then into the rooms.
30:06But the boiler was also used to heat water, which was then fed through pipes to more conventional radiators.
30:13Peles Castle's revolutionary heating system provided warmth for over 40 rooms.
30:19Some of the fireplaces did generate heat, just not in the conventional way.
30:24So they actually created these fake fireplaces, which then had a bit of a cover, and then behind the cover sat the radiators.
30:34So it looked like the heat was coming out of a fireplace, whereas actually it was some super modern technology that was doing the job.
30:42In amongst the modern technology, there was still space to celebrate the traditional.
30:47The grandest of the palaces guest suites was built for the visit of a very special dignitary.
30:56One of the most powerful men in Europe.
30:59We are located here in the imperial apartment, the largest apartment of the people of the castle of the Pelej,
31:08located in the middle of the south, at the beginning of the 20th century, between 1905 and 1906,
31:15in intention of giving up to the emperor Franz Josef the Austro-Ungarii.
31:22King Carol I wanted to impress and honor his neighbor.
31:27And so the room was built in the style of Franz Josef's very own Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.
31:32In the natural, the room was built in the form of the blossom of the
31:36The the
31:39the
31:45the
31:48the
31:48the
31:50the
31:51the
31:53the
31:56the
31:57The
31:58the emperor, the boudoir, Baia and the camera of the first valet.
32:05King Carol I had created a structural masterpiece in the mountains.
32:12But on the 10th of October 1914, he died in his bedroom at Peles.
32:18His 48-year-long reign was over.
32:26Carol was succeeded by his nephew, 49-year-old Ferdinand I.
32:32Ferdinand was married to Princess Marie of Edinburgh, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria.
32:40Queen Marie of Romania was brought up in England.
32:43She was an incredibly popular woman.
32:45She was much loved by the people and she was really very strong-willed.
32:49But Queen Marie was not a fan of her new home at Peles.
32:55She's mentioning in her memoir that she found the castle a little too cold and too dark
33:01and not so much connected to her personality, which was much more lighter and energetic
33:08and she needed more space just for herself.
33:12She wanted her children to have a place where they are first of all children and after that prince and princesses.
33:22The new king and queen did not want Peles to be their home.
33:26They preferred the large mansion just a short distance away that had been built for them by King Carol.
33:32It was known as Pelesor, which means Little Peles.
33:41They saw it growing and becoming their own house.
33:44And that's the place where they had all their children and all their children grew up in that place.
33:51King Carol had insisted that the outside of Pelesor should be architecturally similar in style to its larger neighbor.
34:00The inside, however, was Marie's to play with.
34:04This is the jewel at the heart of Pelesor, known as the Gold Room.
34:11This place is inspired by Curentul Arnouveau.
34:17The trees are covered by the Frunza de Chuline, which is a symbol of heraldic al Scoției Natale,
34:24but in the same time symbol of the Nancy city, where they were put the base of Curentul Arnouveau in the end of the 19th century.
34:35Piesele de mobilier care decorează această sală sunt scultate în lemn de tei aurit.
34:43Regina avea o personalitate deschisă, luminoasă și așa se explică prezența aurului,
34:52care acoperă atât stucatura pereților cât și piesele de mobilier.
34:57The Gold Room meant so much to Queen Marie,
35:01that when she died in July 1938,
35:04her heart was placed in a casket
35:07and will forever remain in her favorite place.
35:15Ferdinand I became King of Romania in October 1914,
35:20two months after the outbreak of the First World War.
35:24Romania remained neutral until 1916,
35:28when the country joined the British and French in the fight against the so-called Central Powers.
35:34But during the conflict, Romania was under regular attack from its enemies
35:39and for a time, Peles castle became a headquarters for the German army.
35:44The royal family took refuge in Iash in the north part of the country.
35:51Peles was a castle in a war as well.
35:55Some areas were closed.
35:57We had the German soldiers around.
35:59Fortunately, there were not mass destructions during the war.
36:04It was not bombed or something.
36:06So it was also protected but used as a military residence.
36:11As part of the treaties at the end of the war,
36:14the region of Transylvania was given to Romania.
36:18It was a significant achievement for King Ferdinand.
36:23Imagine how important was the impact of this result of the war.
36:29Transylvania, which used to be part of Austrian-Hungarian Empire,
36:33and it's a large area and rich area, is now integrated.
36:38So he's the king of the great Romania.
36:43He's the king of the country in the present-day state.
36:48It was here in one of the finest royal apartments at Peles
36:53that King Carol II, the eldest child of Ferdinand and Marie, was born.
36:59He came to the throne in 1930, at the start of a decade of turmoil in Europe.
37:09King Carol II, he was initially popular because he spoke Romanian as the first language.
37:14He'd been born in the country.
37:15But he had a very scandalous reign, a lot of affairs,
37:18and he became very unpopular due to what was seen as his debauchery.
37:22He was very, very intelligent and very erudite,
37:29which was quite unusual for a monarch, for a head of state in those days.
37:35But he lived in the time of Stalin and Hitler.
37:39He couldn't have been Nelson Mandela.
37:41There was no time for that.
37:44And having Hitler on your left side and Stalin on the right side imposes certain behavior.
37:54We are very comfortable today in the European Union to talk about values and shared values,
37:59but at the time his counterparts were Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin.
38:04Quite a strange trio.
38:07King Carol II's autocratic reign ended in 1940,
38:12when Nazi Germany seized Romanian territory.
38:17Carol II abdicated the beginning of the Second World War.
38:22After Romania lost part of Transylvania and the northern part of Romania as well.
38:29Some historians consider that it was a tough decision
38:34and he felt guilty because he was not able to keep the state.
38:39Others consider that he didn't want to take the responsibility.
38:43An extremist government under General Marshal Ion Antonescu joined forces with Hitler.
38:53Then in 1944, with the Soviet army approaching,
38:57the Romanians switched sides and helped drive out the German forces.
39:04Michael I of Romania was the son of Carol II.
39:08So when Carol II had abdicated,
39:10Michael gave a lot of power to lead the war to General Antonescu.
39:13And throughout the war, the power of the Soviet Union really increased.
39:17And in 1945, the government instituted the communist government,
39:21which was very popular with the people.
39:23In 1948, the Communist Party temporarily shut Peles castle to the public.
39:30They didn't knock it down because they didn't need to.
39:33They just closed it and that was all.
39:35They didn't have any appetite for this kind of symbols.
39:38They were very complex.
39:40The complex of inferiority was huge.
39:44I would say that Peles became like a silent witness
39:47of the history of Romania under the communist regime.
39:51Because it's important to mention that the royal family disappeared from the textbooks.
39:56It was nothing mentioned about the kings and queens of Romania
40:01in the textbooks in high schools or the university.
40:06As the regime became tougher, Peles was shut off and became rather mothballed,
40:10which essentially was rather good for it.
40:12People just forgot about it.
40:14In the 1970s, the new communist president, Nicolae Ceaușescu,
40:19recognized the value of Peles as a place to impress foreign dignitaries.
40:24He knew too that the castle was in need of restoration.
40:28With all this, Ceaușescu, in the immediate period of the restauration,
40:35he invited to the castle of Peles the president of the American, Ford,
40:41who was married to the secretary of the state of Henry Kissinger.
40:45There are photographs of the three characters in the hall of honor.
40:49By the occasion of the visit to Sinai, Ford and Ceaușescu,
40:53they started the economic treaty of the most favored nations.
41:00One month after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989,
41:05Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist government also crumbled.
41:10After the Romanian revolution of 1989,
41:13Peles Castle came back into the hands of government
41:15and it was opened and used for events and concerts
41:18and became a place of entertainment once more.
41:21When we read the journals of the time or newspapers of the time,
41:27we understand how people from all over Romania just came to visit.
41:32They are still coming, of course, to visit Peles,
41:34but the first year after the fall of communists
41:37saw an important number of Romanians
41:40who wanted to learn more about their history
41:43and their royal history as well.
41:47The castle finally came back to the royal family.
41:49The royal family no longer ruled Romania,
41:51but they were given back their title
41:53and under part of these negotiations,
41:55they did get back some of their palaces, including Peles.
41:59In 1997, King Michael I, the son of Carol II,
42:04who had reigned before the communist era,
42:07was allowed to return to Romania.
42:10His Royal Highness, Prince Radu's father-in-law,
42:13had proved to be remarkably resilient.
42:16King Michael is probably, could be in the Guinness Book of Records.
42:22He is probably the only king I know in history
42:25who managed to survive 90 years his own coronation.
42:3090 years.
42:32Crowned at the age of six and died at the age of 96.
42:36Somebody who had to have lunch with Hitler
42:39and militated for NATO
42:42until the countries behind the Arya curtain
42:46became NATO members,
42:47and then he went to eternity.
42:49It's quite a number of models to follow.
42:52Today, the castle attracts over 400,000 visitors a year
43:05from all over the world.
43:07Peles was built as a new castle for a new country.
43:11What began as a project by a German-born ruler
43:14has been embraced as a truly Romanian treasure.
43:19It is interesting from my perspective as a historian
43:24to see that after a century and a half
43:27from the moment the castle was built,
43:30became really part of the Romanian civilization,
43:34the symbol of the Romanian history.
43:37The value of Peles is the identity of the place,
43:43the fact that it incarnates a very important part
43:46of our sovereignty, of our history,
43:50of our politics, of our nation.
43:52That's perhaps why Romanians love Peles so much,
43:55because they see in it the reflection of their own statehood,
43:59and statehood is what we missed for 50 years.
44:07.
44:17.
44:23.
44:26.
44:31.
44:34.