Why Dracula makes Transylvania so enticing. Photo / 123rf
Why Dracula makes Transylvania so enticing. Photo / 123rf
You can’t mention Transylvania without thinking of Count Dracula and his blood-sucking deeds, but is it all as deliciously ghastly as you’d think? Pauline Ray investigates.
Irish writer Bram Stoker has a lot to answer for. Not only has he fuelled an entire tourist industry through his blood-curdling Victorian novel, Dracula, but the tourists who visit Bran Castle are mostly unaware that the writer never set foot in the castle or even in Transylvania when he wrote his Gothic novel in 1897.
And nor did his real-life hero, Vlad the Impaler, whom Dracula is reputedly based on, ever live in the castle.
But few of the daily throngs of people who visit Bran Castle, situated on a rocky promontory above the small village of Bran, give a toss about the historical accuracy of the novel and about the story of Vlad the Impaler.
Tourists queue, sometimes for hours, to visit the castle with its three winding staircases (including a secret staircase) and then to wander down into the laneways below brimming with souvenir stalls selling fang-decorated coffee mugs, plastic teeth, and tea towels. It’s a giant pile of fun and a great day out.
My favourite sign was on a pub: “Dracula drank here - Twice”. And I also enjoyed a bite of one of “Dracula’s icecreams” although I thought that Dracula himself would have preferred a hot drink.
About 600 movies have sprung up around Bran Castle as Dracula’s home.
Dracula is ostensibly based on a 15th-century real-life hero, Vlad Tepes, a Romanian prince and Knight Templar. Our Romanian guide said sniffily “he never drank blood” but he was certainly bloodthirsty and was known to have impaled his enemies.
Vlad the Impaler is a Romanian hero, celebrated for his battles against the Ottoman Empire. Photo / Pauline Ray
Vlad Tepes is a Romanian hero because of his attempts to thwart the Ottomans who were then ruling Romania, or Wallachia as it was then known.
Vlad, who had learnt Turkish, organised an attack on the Turkish border and even though he had only 32,000 soldiers against the giant Ottoman army of 70,000, he had a few tricks up his sleeve.
He devised the idea of dressing his troops as Turkish soldiers and attacking at night, as well as throwing pigs into the Turks’ wells. As Muslims the Turks never ate pork, so Vlad thought they would be poisoned by the decaying pigs.
Ultimately he lost the war, but he became a national hero because of his bravery and we saw a number of statues dedicated to his memory. Sadly he was later killed by opposing nobles and his head was displayed in Istanbul for three weeks after his death.
Our guide said that the difference between the real-life story of Vlad the Impaler and Dracula was a “100% Hollywood invention”.
She also blamed the gullibility of the Romanians and their many superstitions, some of which survive today. For example, people will turn into werewolves if their parents are related. In the south of Transylvania people wave live chickens three times under coffins. They also believe in spirits called the Undead. Example: if a new mother goes outside without her head cover she will become one of the Undead.
Bran Castle was an entertaining visit, and mercifully crowd-free on the day we went in July, but the furniture and art displays were more about the previous Romanian Royal Family who had owned the castle for most of the 20th century until it was taken over by the Communists, but that’s another long, complicated story. There were also displays of military armour and uniforms. The present owner is Dominic von Hapsburg, Archduke of Hapsburg Tuscany, who inherited the castle in 2009.
Despite its fame, Bran Castle’s interiors are more focused on Romanian royal history than on Dracula. Photo / 123rf
The most popular time to visit is Halloween and last year an online rumour that Angelina Jolie and Elon Musk would be visiting caused a huge crush of visitors – they didn’t arrive. And in 2016 Airbnb ran a global competition promising a night slept in a coffin in the castle, which was won by a Canadian brother and sister.
We visited Bran Castle as part of a three-day visit to Transylvania, and discovered there is much more to the pretty mountainous area, than the Dracula story, although that has made the region a global tourist magnet.
Transylvania means “the Land Beyond the Forest” and the locals prefer to be known as Transylvanian, rather than Romanian.
The population includes 18 ethnic minorities. After Romanians, the next largest group is Hungarians, which is not surprising as the country was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918. The next largest group is Gypsies and the three main languages spoken are Romanian, Hungarian, and German.
Locals drink an average of 86 litres of beer per person each year and their favourite dish is goulash.
Transylvania is famous for its seven fortified churches. Photo / Pauline Ray
Encircled by the Carpathian Mountains, Transylvania is a heavily forested area, full of beech, spruce, and linden trees, with the biggest forest owner being Ikea.
The forests contain a rich and varied animal life, including foxes, lynx, and bears. There are about 80,000 brown bears in an area of 238,200 sq km. It is not permitted to hunt bears, although there is a cull every year.
There is a strong German influence in Transylvania, as Saxons from Liechtenstein and Belgium were promised “freedom to live and build” in the 15th century, to boost the population and help defend the locals from Ottoman invasion. There are plenty of Tyrolean-style wooden houses, and pockets of German craftsmen, but many Germans left in the 1930s.
Transylvania is famous for its seven fortified churches. We visited one, with 10m -thick walls, and plenty of rooms, where locals stored lard on the bottom floor, in case of invasion.
Another sightseeing delight is the town of Sighisoara, encircled by fortified walls, craft shops and an ornate clocktower. Vlad is reputed to have been born there and we went to lunch in “Vlad’s house”.
Transylvania’s capital, Brasov, features a Hollywood-style sign on Mt Tampa overlooking the city. Photo / 123rf
The capital of Transylvania is Brasov, a charming bustling city, sporting several medieval watchtowers, baroque buildings, and complete with a Hollywood type sign on Mt Tampa above the city. Lots of cafes lined the pedestrianised main square.
There are also a number of Unesco-protected villages in Transylvania, including Viscri, where King Charles owns a house. He is connected to the former Romanian royal family through his father Prince Philip. The village has rows of pretty pastel-coloured houses, although the population appears to have fled to the cities or other European Union countries in search of work.
Locals are determinedly upfront about their recent Communist past and in amongst the pretty cottages and baroque buildings, there are still plenty of Soviet-style apartment blocks in the larger towns.
The village of Viscri, where King Charles owns a house, is a Unesco-protected site in Transylvania. Photo / 123rf
Checklist
TRANSYLVANIA
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Sibiu International Airport in Transylvania with Lufthansa and Air NZ on a Star Alliance code-share basis.
Bran Castle is about two hours and 15 minutes by car from the airport.
DETAILS
The writer visited Transylvania as a three-day extension to a Viking river cruise, Capitals of Eastern Europe.
