The castle is clearly visible on the hill near to the village. It looks much more like a Dracula pad than Bran does, as it is craggy, forbidding, and exciting. Bran castle is converted to a (kind of) museum, and has been done up and decorated, and the roof is still on, while Risnov is semi-ruined and has far fewer tourists. The castle is up a steep hill, and there is no access for disabled people – it’s quite a steep climb up, and takes about 15 minutes from the bus stop. The inside is overgrown, grassy, and great to chill out in - the outer walls are intact, but quite a few of the inner ones are crumbling, and the courtyard and farming spaces within the castle (used during sieges, it appears) are
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The castle is clearly visible on the hill near to the village. It looks much more like a Dracula pad than Bran does, as it is craggy, forbidding, and exciting. Bran castle is converted to a (kind of) museum, and has been done up and decorated, and the roof is still on, while Risnov is semi-ruined and has far fewer tourists. The castle is up a steep hill, and there is no access for disabled people – it’s quite a steep climb up, and takes about 15 minutes from the bus stop. The inside is overgrown, grassy, and great to chill out in - the outer walls are intact, but quite a few of the inner ones are crumbling, and the courtyard and farming spaces within the castle (used during sieges, it appears) are wild.
Walking through the huge grounds is very interesting, and the lack of a museum is refreshing if you've seen lots of highly preserved, visitor orientated castles elsewhere in Europe! We had bought some bread, cheese and water in the village nearby, and had a very enjoyable picnic in the ex-sheep pen at the back. To get here from Bran castle, you walk back to the village, and either walk about a mile towards the castle (which you can see the whole way) or wait for a bus going in that direction. There appears to be one bus about every 90 minutes.
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