Next up is Dracula’s Castle located in Brasov, Romania which is north of Bucharest and up in the mountains.

This leg of the trip didn’t start off as good as it could’ve….the airline lost the luggage in Warsaw, Poland. The first night was spent in Bucharest with the following 2 nights in Brasov to visit Dracula’s Castle. The airline gave their assurance that the luggage would be sent up over the next 3 days. That was sort of okay except the trip was only for 2 days. Why 2 days??? The reason not one day is because of heavy snow and ice on the road.

Nothing could be done about this….it’s just being at the mercy of a foreign airline in a foreign country. All part of the experience. That’s what I kept telling myself.

The night at the hotel in Bucharest was comfy, it was a Best Western Inn. I almost felt at home except for when I arrived on my floor and the hallway was pitch dark!!! That’s rather common in Europe, there are motion detector lights to save on energy. I adjusted, just one night and the airline was kind enough to provide an overnight kit with a t-shirt. Yep, a t-shirt. A plain white t-shirt. It fit so, I’m happy.

Off to the train station (without luggage) for a run up to Brasov to Count Dracula’s Castle!!!

Dracula’s Castle

This was a ‘new’ experience for me….not the train, that happened several times here in Europe. But, traveling thru the mountains and the forest covered with ‘snow’ was a trip through a ‘Winter Wonderland’ from the comfy confines of my train car.

WOW!!!!

The really interesting part of the trip was that of seeing the villages and the oddities of the outdoor lifestyle, all of which I got no pictures because they caught me by surprise!!! Bummer.

The approach to Dracula’s Castle from the east isn’t that dramatic. On our way to park the driver pointed to my right down a street and said, “it’s over there.”

It doesn’t look very haunting? Does it?

To me, this is the most haunting sight in and outside the castle…

It’s known as the ‘Secret Stairway’. And to visitors it’s the only access up to start off the tour. As you can tell by the blurriness of the photo, I wasn’t very steady. The structure of the entrance to this stairway leads to my unsteadiness for taking this photo. It is very narrow (the picture doesn’t show justice to the dynamics of this stairway), while both my shoulders couldn’t touch at the same time, it was very very close. That’s a ‘rope’ to the right is the handrail for steadying one’s self. Not very good.

Thank goodness this isn’t the way up and down!!

This was a very cold day and while there is a medieval heating system in the castle, it was lite. Each floor and room had a heating chamber, well, not all the rooms the main room had this huge heating chamber and a duct would run upward along with a chimney.

Here’s one…

The hallways are very narrow as the stairways are and there is no heating in the halls. Lighting is somewhat modern, but I suspect that it is considerate of the antiques in the castle because they produced the most horrible lighting I believe to ever have experienced!!! Well, maybe except for the bathroom lighting in a retail store.

Dracula???

Stairs…..lots of stairs. So many stairs it gets confusing as to where you are at!! Oh, and those same narrow stairs leading up are the same narrow stairs I have to use leading down. Problem? Yes, problem because people are coming up while I’m going down, that backs up into the hallway….the very narrow hallway back into one of the rooms that they or I just left! In some areas there is no bannister and only a wall to brace myself. I don’t like heights.

Who was Count Dracula? The castle wastes no time with fact and fiction.

The rooms (smaller and odd shaped with no furnishings) tell the stories.

It’s the Bran Castle. It’s located in Transylvania near the city of Brasov (lovely place) it was in reality the home of ‘royalty’. It has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, the putative inspiration for Dracula.  And is often erroneously referred to as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle. Nonetheless, it’s known as ‘Dracula’s Castle’. As such there’s a giftshop with a plethora of Dracula gift items and cookbooks (I don’t recall cookbooks, but it just seems….fitting!).

Bram Stroker

First, the Royal Residence. After the 1920 Treaty of Trianon it became the Royal Residence of The Kingdom of Romania after Hungary lost Transylvania to Romania (The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement of 1920 that formally ended World War I between most of the Allies of World War I and the Kingdom of Hungary.). While the history is to deep to go into here, it first became the home retreat of Queen Marie donated from the Saxons of Kronstadt-Braşov because of it’s deteriorating condition. From there, it was inherited by her daughter Princess Ileana who ran a hospital there in World War II. Then things go a bit heywire as it’s seized by the communist regime thru it’s reign to eventual downfall.

So, where does Dracula come in with this castle?

Okay. Dracula is a fictional character. Vlad the Impaler is a real character. It is thought that perhaps Bram Stroker based Dracula on Vlad the Impaler and therein lies the connection to the castle in Bran.

Vlad the Impaler known as Vlad III Dracula was a ruler of Wallachia from 1448 to his death. As by his nickname ‘Impaler’ Vlad was ruthless…his preferred method of execution was ‘impalement’, thus the nickname. There are 2 letters signed by him referring himself as “Dragulya” or “Drakulya” in the late 1470’s which ties him to Dracula.

He, despite his ruthless torturing methods is a hero in Romania as his death was in honor of defending his country.

Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page for Vlad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler . This is a good read….you’ll see a bit of the connection here.

Two other castles are linked to the Dracula lore are Poenari Castle and Hunyadi Castle.

I do wish I had more time to have explored the other castles but, getting to them in the winter was often unavailable. Winter gets a bit harsh.