Zichy Castle in Poiana Florilor

Pădurea Neagră, Romania, Romania

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Zichy Castle in Poiana Florilor, near Aleșd in Bihor County, Romania, is a late 19th-century hunting lodge built between 1891 and 1893 by Count Zichy Jenő, an Asian explorer, on a forested hilltop site previously occupied by a burned hunting house, blending neogothic and Renaissance styles as a gift for his wife.

After passing to his nephew Zichy Ödön in 1904, who converted it into a grand hunting castle, it hosted nobility and art collections until nationalization in 1948 turned it into a hotel, restaurant, and children's sanatorium, leading to looting and decay under communism.

 Assigned to the Orthodox Church in 1998, it now houses the Sfântul Ilie nunnery with rehabilitation efforts, including a relocated 18th-century wooden church from Lugașu de Jos, standing amid protected beech forests as a Bihor heritage site.