After more than six years since the contract for the restoration was signed, work on the Poienari (also spelled Poenari, both forms are accepted) fortress is finally finished.
The first tourists after 2018 will be able to visit the fortress again beginning with next Monday, April 14, 2025.
The contract to finance the restoration of the fortress was signed in 2018. The work was supposed to be finished in May 2020, but it started a year and a half after the deadline. The penultimate completion deadline, December 2023, was also missed. So was the later one, December 2024.
Several unforeseen obstacles arose during the work, so the builders had to face many unexpected challenges.
The cost of restoring the Poienari castle exceeded 25 million RON (more than 5 million EUR). Of this money, 9.64 million RON was non-reimbursable European money (9.647 million). Argeș County Council contributed the difference of just over 16 million RON.
The companies who have carried out the work are Euras SRL and Arhing SRL, both from Satu-Mare, Romania. The same companies also won the contract for the rehabilitation of the Curtea de Argeș Royal Railway Station.
In past years, the Poienari fortress attracted, on average, between 100,000 and 120,000 tourists annually.
The Poienari (Poenari) fortress, said to have been one of the residences of Vlad Tepes (also known as Vlad The Impaler, king of Walachia), is located on the iconic Transfăgărășan road, 27 km north of Curtea de Argeș and about 100 km south of Sibiu.
To reach the fortress, which is located more than 800 meters above sea level, you have to climb 1480 steps. But the view is well worth the effort.
Pictures courtesy of ArgeșulOnline.ro archive, Wikipedia/Teodor Laurențiu Busuioc
