Zach Bolinger
Travel Journals - Halloween in Transylvania
October 17, 2005
Some details about the trip
I'm going with people I know from work here in Iraq. One guy used to be my boss, but then he moved to another project. His fiance is from Romania, and this is the first time he will be seeing the country she is from. She is going to show us around. We'll start in Bucharest for a couple days and then spend about a week driving around the country.
As I understand it, there are 3 places that claim to be Dracula's Castle. The most famous is Castle Bran. It's claim to fame is looking like what people expect to see after a century of movies based on Bram Stoker's book. Other than that, it's got very little to do with Dracula. It is about 100 years old and an impressive sight that we will not miss.
The next most popular "Dracula's Castle" is the Golden Crown Hotel. In the novel, Harker describes eating a meal at the Golden Crown in Borgo Pass. The actual hotel was built during Communist rule in recent history. It's only claim to legitimacy is that it shares the name of a place in the book, and it is in the right region of Transylvania. The aspect that is most appealing to me about this candidate is that you can spend a night there. I might be willing to tell people that this one is the real Dracula's Castle if it also meant that I could tell people I spent the night in it.
The site with the most right to the title, IMHO, is not even in Transylvania. It's in Wellachia, another section of Romania. Count Dracula is based on a real person who lived in Wellachia about 500 years ago. Vlad the Impaler lived in Wellachia, though, and rarely visited Transylvania. Parts of his castle still remain, though in ruins.
I would like to visit all three sites if we can. We'll have to see what our local guide has planned.