We arrived in Romania this morning, rented a car and drove almost 4 hours to Bran's Castle (the home of Bram Stoker's Dracula). The drive through the mountains was not without incident; I felt like I was in a video game, my manual compact rental shifting through winding roads cluttered with old junker cars, fast race cars, donkeys, horses with wagons, fruit stands, and people just milling around ...all through a 2 lane highway that in any other country would make an efficient journey. We were finally lured into stopping at a fruit stand where we bought some amazing peaches...and chips they were selling too. Completely random.
On the way we stopped at this amazing Romanian restaurant in a small village where the waitress convinced us into trying the local wild meat; we were not disappointed.
When we finally arrived at Bran's castle, we were quite underwhelmed. Sure, it was beautiful and castle-like with turrests on a sprawling property, but we weren't there for that.
We wanted blood and gore but the castle's history was more like butterflies and kittens. It housed royalty who were loved by their people...yada yada yada. We were much more interested in learning about Vlad the Impaler. Dracula's charater was inspired by Vlad who was a brutal ruler who impaled thousands of people and was feared by the locals as well as those trying to invade at the time...his history is shocking and great reading. Anyway, it turns out Vlad never lived at Bran Castle..so a bit of a let down but the journey there was splendid!
What was all that white furry stuff on the
ReplyDeletechairs? Hope you are taking lots of pictures.
Grandma