Visiting Dracula’s(or Vlad for close friends) Crib

This weekend I had lots of fun visiting Bran Castle, and the surrounding area, where I felt like a foreign tourist. For most of you folks Bran Castle is Dracula’s crib…but in reality, sorry to disappoint you, Vlad Tepes, the “bloody” Romanian ruler known worldwide as Count Dracula had very little to do with this place as in he never lived there (the only famous person who stayed there was Princess Mary of Edinburgh, queen consort of Ferdinand I of Romania)…he just raided the area a few times to settle some trading issues with the Saxon traders living in Brasov and Bran area. Well after a 3 hour trip we finally arrived in Bran and decided to visit first of all the village museum near the castle. A few pictures here and there, a nice walk through the museum and we got hungry ( long trips and the fresh cold mountain air tend to have that effect on you ) so we got us a kurtos kalac, it’s a very interesting, tasty and renowned Hungarian cake made throughout Transylvania but not only there. So after stuffing our faces with kurtos we entered Bran Castle’s garden, hastening our pace to the castle’s entrance and honestly I was surprised to see how many foreigners were waiting in line to buy tickets. Well as soon as we bought the tickets we entered a photographic rampage inside and outside Bran Castle (that’s what happens when Vlad isn’t home :) ). I was happy to see that they brought back some of the original furniture and rearranged the place in a pleasant way (most of the furniture being claimed by the royal family). After photographing almost everything we decided to go and rest. We stayed in a well kept, very old but cute house that had everything we needed and as a plus it was near the forest at the foot of the mountain. We slept and recovered our forces and we went up the mountain to gather some wood but also to admire the whole area from a higher place. The panorama was magnificent, you could see very easily even Rasnov Fortress and the muddy ascend was worth while. I’m regretting the fact that we had to go back home the next day…but I’m going to return there for sure