Vlad Tepeș Castle (Castelul Vlad Tepeș) is a castle in the Carol I Park in Bucharest, currently housing the National Office for the Cult of Heroes.
The castle is a smaller replica of Poenari Castle, the ruined castle of the Wallachian ruler Vlad III, better known as Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepeș), and the inspirational source for the development of the fictional character Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The Vlad Tepeș Castle in Bucharest was built in 1906 when the Carol I Park was set up and resembles the medieval character of the original Poenari Castle in Argeș County. The reason for this is that King Carol I didn’t like the original water tower in its place and so the replica castle was built to cover the ugly sight.
Over time, the castle has been used for military purposes, to house the women who worked on maintaining the Carol I Park, and as a station for a special gendarme unit protecting banks. In 2004 the castle became the headquarters of the National Office for the Cult of Heroes, the institution administering monuments and military cemeteries.
