BRAN CASTLE 1377

The Bran fortress was built on a cliff between Măgura and The Hill of the Fortress, its position conferring an outstanding view towards both the hills of Moeciu and the ones from the Land of Bârsa. The building of the fortress was imposed by strategic and economic reasons. The strategic reasons underlined by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire which, by the end of the XIV century, began threatening the south-eastern borders of Transylvania; the economic reasons, given by the fact that the commercial road, one of the most important access ways connecting Transylvania to Wallachia, crossed this area. All these reasons determined the Hungarian king Louis I of Anjou to develop strengthening works of the Bran pass.