The most visited historical monuments in Romania, the Peleș and Pelișor castles in the Sinaia resort, will limit the number of tourists.
Thus, tickets are purchased for specific time slots, up to 2,000 people/day at Peleș and 1,500 people/day at Pelișor, as stated on the museum’s official website.
According to the cited source, the two castles are the most visited historical monuments in Romania, and in order to protect them and their exceptional heritage, tickets can only be purchased for specific time slots.
The Manager of the Peleș National Museum (PNM), Narcis-Dorin Ion, stated on Wednesday to Agerpres that the decision was made for a rational exploitation of the two monuments and for organizing tours in specific time slots, thus avoiding overcrowding that could lead to the degradation of the monuments.
“It's a segmentation of groups, in the sense that all agencies used to come in the morning and we would end up with 700-800 people visiting. We have issues with the interior staircase, with both staircases, the construction is made of wood and, in order not to damage the monument, we made an average and divided tourists into groups of 500 per time slot. (…)
It's a kind of scheduling, as it is in the West, as it is everywhere. Then there is no longer this heavy burden on the building, because the staircase is made of wood and goes from the ground floor to the upper floor and from the vestibule to the Hall of Honor. And that one already has major problems and we cannot exploit it in this way. However, it is the property of the Royal House, it is a category A monument, a monument that can be classified as UNESCO, the documentation is done and we cannot afford to destroy the building,” explained Narcis-Dorin Ion.
He specified that since the beginning of the year, there has been a large influx of tourists and complaints have been made to the Ministry of Culture regarding the way the museum is visited.
“There has been a large influx of tourists since the beginning of this year. And this is everywhere after the Schengen opening. There are many groups of foreign tourist agencies that come and many schoolchildren are added during holiday periods, students, and during the 'Different Week' periods… And we have already received complaints at the ministry (...) Complaints that it is very crowded, that there are cohorts of children making the whole castle tremble, but you can only prohibit them by this limitation and redirect them towards Pelișor,” the source mentioned.
The museum manager notes that the daily average number of visitors is about 2,000 people, exceeding on weekends.