Vlad the Impaler and the legend of Count Dracula

Parliament Palace, the worlds largest civilian building

As we crossed the imposing river Danube separating Bulgaria and Romania it immediately became apparent that Romania was a very different country from its neighbours. Having been dominated by the empires of Austria Hungary to the north and the Ottomans to the South it was only formally created in 1918 by the union of its three provinces, Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania. Wallachia and Moldova had offered furious resistance to the Ottoman Turks and remained autonomous.  Transylvania however was successively taken under Ottoman & Hungarian rule but remained semi – autonomous by paying high taxes.  The Romanians however root their own ethnicity back to the Roman occupation and are noticeably different from the surrounding nations, both physically and culturally, despite sharing the Orthodox Church and having strong Slavic influences. Romanian is considered as the fifth romance language stemming from the Romans and the architecture is more akin to central Europe rather than other former Soviet satellites.  Even as part of the Eastern Bloc Romania maintained a separate foreign policy from the USSR and refused to assist the repression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, ignored the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics as well as condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.   Despite this the people suffered from the brutal secret police under the infamous dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.   Known as ‘The Paragon of Reason and clear sightedness’, ‘Source of our Light’ and ‘First Personage of the World’ in an attempt to satisfy his ego by the press, he demanded that before entering a village on a state visit dead leaves and trees be painted green and that all children be quarantined for 48 hours before in case they infected him.  Rumour has it that when he was assassinated, along with his wife on Christmas Day 1989, 300 soldiers volunteered to pull the trigger.    

Unsurprisingly then from its history Bucharest has a far more western European feel with its small but beautiful old town packed with small boutique bars, cobbled streets and a lively atmosphere.  We stayed in the centre of the city and spent our only afternoon in the city wandering the old town and visiting the largest civilian building in the world, the palace of Nicolae Ceauşescu which contains 3100 rooms and dominates the city centre.  The following day we headed north towards Transylvania, the focal point of our visit to Romania.  We took the train north and expecting the worst after our experiences of Bulgarian trains, we were pleasantly surprised to find a clean and punctual train.  We spent the entire journey speaking to a young medical student from Germany and as it transpired a famous Romanian poet.  She was able to tell us about life in Romania and described the country as being an island in Eastern Europe, something that seemed after only a short time in the country an accurate description.  She told us about life under the communists, from the public obedience to the private defiance.  As a lecturer at the university during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising she told us how despite not assisting, the university in Bucharest had many students and lecturers arrested and ‘re-educated’ with many not returning.  As she owned a type writer she described how it was checked monthly by the Secret Police to compare the print to anti-communist propaganda distributed around the city and how the Soviets banned 91 words as their subjugation of Romania began to unravel.  This included the word solitude, as nobody could be alone in a communist nation.  As we entered Transylvania and began to wind up the valley the mountains rose steeply either side, covered in fir trees that revealed pistes for the ski resorts around.  Although the towns were not picture perfect like in Austria they were very charming with Bavarian styled houses entwined with grand 19^th century buildings including the former residence of the King of Romania, King Carol I. Liliana pointed out the cross high above Sinaia that students had carried up the Bucegi Mountains to erect in disobedience of the Soviet repression of religion. 

Bran Castle

We based ourselves in the town of Brasov planning on spending a few days exploring the infamous castle at Bran, setting of the legend of Count Dracula.  The famous novel created by Bram Stroker was inspired by Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) and the legend surrounding him.  We took another free walking tour around Brasov and learnt about the tyrannical ruler of the region and his panache for impaling people outside of the city walls.  Some 20,000 people are rumoured to have been impaled in his 6 year reign and a ‘good’ impaling would leave the victim to die over a few days as he slowly slid down the pole.  Having met a nice group of travellers on the tour, Daniel  from Prague, kindly drove us, a Chinese / American guy named Peter and a professor from America to Bran Castle.  I was a little disappointed that Bran Castle was not quite as sinister as I had hoped but the information around the castle that explained how the story had led to the legend of Dracula (translated as son of the devil) was interesting.  Peter was struggling to come to terms with needing an endless series of VISAs to travel and spent the afternoon complaining about the travails of travelling on a Chinese passport as we had dinner in the hostel but along with a Vietnamese American, he did help to plan our route through Asia in a few months time. 

Peles Castle

Having planned to visit Peles Castle the following morning we awoke to discover the bad weather had closed in so we spent the time planning and drinking coffee with Daniel, who it turned out was a coffee connoisseur, spending an hour drinking a single cup of Colombian filter coffee as he explained the best brewing techniques.  We were rewarded with our patience the following morning with a crisp, winter’s day and after a few urgent skype calls trying to solve issues with the Trans Mongolian tickets and our accommodation in Brazil we caught the 1 hour train south to Sinaia and Peles Castle.  Situated among the forests on the slopes of the valley the setting for the castle was idyllic.  It is widely thought to rival Versailles for its beauty and the impressive wooden carvings throughout the building rather than ornate gold and silver meant that it felt far more homely than other royal residences we had visited and fitted in perfectly with the natural environment.  We rushed back to Brasov to catch the overnight sleeper train to Budapest.  Although booking
a 6 person carriage we were fortunate that only ourselves and Peter Griffin's twin, Brian, were in the carriage as it was a little cramped.  The train was very comfortable and we crossed the Hungarian border at 6am after a vigorous search of the train by the Hungarian border police.  We continued north towards Budapest through the rolling meadows in desperate need of one of Budapest’s famous thermal baths.