Constantin Brancoveanu is one of Romania’s heroes, having been executed by the Ottomans, along with his sons, for refusing to renounce his faith. He is a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church and his remains are in the New Saint George Church in Bucharest (which is actually not ‘new’ but 18th century in age), one of the largest built in Budapest during his reign and one of the most-recently restored to coincide with his sainthood in 2014.  In the grounds at the front is a statue of Brancoveanu himself.

Outside Bucharest, the beautiful Mogoșoaia Palace, built in Romanian Renaissance or Brâncovenesc style, has had a history of disaster and revival. It was confiscated by the Ottomans in 1714, after Constantin Brancoveanu and his family were executed, and converted into an inn.  It was then ruined by the Ottomans during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, restored and later bombed by the Germans in 1916, reconstructed in the 1920′s by Princess Martha Bibesco, only to be taken over by the communist authorities, when the owners were arrested and part of the art collection “disappeared”.

In 1957, it became a museum and is now at the centre of a beautiful park alongside the lake, quiet and relaxing with wonderful historic and well-maintained buildings and grounds.