Who’s house? Bram’s House

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28-08-2008 Who’s house? Bram’s House

Well it wasn’t really Bram Stoker’s house but Bran castle was what gave Bram the inspiration to write his famous book. Apparently Vlad never lived here, he just “dropped in for a visit” at some point in the 1500s. Jen, as a vampire enthusiast was thrilled to see the castle, but disappointed by the setting. She expected the castle to be on a ragged hill in the middle of the Transylvanian alps, not in a village with market stalls selling tacky vampire gimmicks and serving bloody vampire steaks with fangs. It’s as pity because the village and the castle itself is really scenic, if they just cleared out all of the tacky souvenirs and got rid of tourists it would be a lovely place - I know probably sounds familiar to many famous site seeing areas in the world. It is free to enter the gardens at Bram Castle, though there are guys walking around to make you pay a photography tax, we side stepped them and only made a very brief visit. Again, nice to see, but not something you would want to base your holiday around.

This afternoon we arrived in Brasov after being based in Sighisoara for 3 days. We found some really good pizza, the toping would have been enough for 5 pizzas. Often you see food as a measured weight on the menu. They seem to have gone to extremes here, they tell you how many grams of mushrooms, bacon and all the individual elements. They don’t seem to drink much local beer here, mainly German and Danish. There is a large pedestrian street running through the centre of the old town, which is jammed full of trendy cafes. People dress very stylishly, I think most of the tourists here are young well off folk from Bucharest, this is really not the common image that everyone has of Romania - and seems worlds away from the villages we were in yesterday, which are only 20 min drive away. This is modern Transylvania, very different from Sighisoara, it still has a friendly vibe here, but I think spending more time in Sighisoara was the way to go.

This is as far east as we venture on this trip, tomorrow we start to head west - across to Timisoara our last stop in Romania as we start to head across to Croatia.

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Photos

Bran Castle
The Castel that inspired the real Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bran Castle
House in the garden in front of the castle

Bran Castle
Dracula Castle

Brasov
Brasov alley at night