Searching for Dracula....

The easy answer is that he never existed but I did find out about a very disturbing character called Vlad Dracul Tepes who had the nasty habit of sticking people on spikes and leaving them to die a slow and painful death. Dracul is derived from "son of the dragon" and Tepes means "impaler", thus you get the charming name of Vlad the Impaler, son of the Dragon. This bloodlust led to the myth of the Vampire Lord we all know as Count Dracula. Sadly this was one of the main reasons why I chose to visit Transylvania but after seeing a number of towns and their surroundings I can easily say that this area has far far more to offer than vampire myths and haunted castles.

Before traveling to Transylvania I spent a few days in Bucharest getting to know this interesting city. The best word I can think of to describe Bucharest is "BIG". Not "enormous" or "gigantic" because those words are too descriptive and on the whole the buildings aren't that beautiful or decorative. It is just their size that makes them stand out and there is no better example of this than the ironically named "The House of the People". This Palace of Parliament was built by the infamous communist leader Ceausescu and not only did it cost a horrendous amount of money to build but a whole suburb had to be destroyed to make room for it. As I was walking around this monstrosity I met an Austrian guy, Thomas, who was doing an internship in Bucharest and I ended up spending the rest of the day walking around the city with him. He knew the city quite well and was able to show me the building from which Ceausescu tried to keep control of the country by having his soldiers fire on booing demonstrators. The demonstrators won in the end though and he was arrested the next day, and a few days later was executed by firing squad. In the evening we went to a terrace on top of the National Theatre building where I met a lot of his Romanian friends so was great to talk to them about my travel plans for Transylvania.

Acting on some good advice I had received the night before I started exploring Transylvania in a town called Sinaia famous for the beautiful Peles Castle. I arrived on a Monday but this turned out to be the only day of the week that the castle was shut to the public. To make matters worse I couldn't even walk up to the castle as it was being patrolled by armed soldiers in combat fatigues... Turns out that in one of the rooms of the castle all of the furniture is made out of solid gold so it is constantly guarded by the army. I spoke to the soldier for a while and it soon became clear that a small "gift" might change matters. :P So having given my "gift" I was allowed to walk all around the castle and get a much better look at it. Gotta love Eastern Europe!

From there I moved on to Brasov where I stayed a few days doing day trips to various towns in the area. Brasov is a really nice town in its own right and I really enjoyed walking around it and soaking up the vibe but I must say that what I most remember about Brasov are the great people I met in my hostel. The most interesting of which were a Canadian family who had sold their house and car back home and where now traveling the world for an indefinite time period. They had already been traveling for 16 months when I met them and the plan was at least 1 more year of vagabonding!!! Quite an amazing family to say the least.

I also met two cool Israelis in Brasov and we day tripped to Bran Castle one day. This is supposed to be Dracula’s Castle but it turns out that Vlad was never even there at any point in time so bit of a tourist trap. Still a very nice castle though and definitely worth a visit. Then it was on to Rasnov Castle which was more of a ruin of a castle but still nice to visit. They are currently renovating it so I guess that in a few years (well maybe decades gauging by the speed with which the workmen were working) the castle will resemble something of its original form.

My last stop in Transylvania was the picturesque town of Sighisoara where Vlad grew up. It is a much smaller town but is really beautiful to walk around. I didn't go into too many buildings there as I had almost run out of Romanian Lei and didn't want to pay the international transaction fee to withdraw more... :P I did however visited Dracula's (I know I should say Vlad but Dracula sounds so much cooler!) house which is now a restaurant, but how anyone can eat in that place while knowing what he did is beyond me. Then after a full day of walking around the town I hopped on a night train to Vienna, but no I'm sorry this isn't the end of my 3 months of traveling. There is still one more blog to come on my last 2 weeks of fun!

If anyone wants to read up about Vlad then this sight seems to have a pretty good overview. I must warn you though that it isn't easy reading so if you don't like gruesome details I would give it a miss. Vlad The Impaler

Some of you may have noticed a bit of a gap between Sarajevo and Bucharest. The truth is that I also visited Belgrade (Serbia) and Sofia (Bulgaria) but even though both these places were very nice I don't think I'd have enough for a blog on each... Ok the truth is I'm lazy and the thought of writing up 2 blogs over a month after I was there isn't exactly appealing. If you really want to know anything about them feel free to email me. :)

---

---