Day #247 - Dracula's Castle - Bran, Romania

Entrance into Bran Castle (Dracula's Castle)

View from outdoor balcony

Story of Dracula

Path to the castle

View to the castle from ground level

Tuesday, November 16th

Hard-core day today. We finally flew out of Tel Aviv at 5:30am. We arrived into Bucharest around 8am. I really didn't sleep at all the entire night - but dosed off many times.

Too much to do - with little time to execute. I fell behind a few days due to my 2 trips back to STL, this means that I have some ground to make up. Instead of sleeping, I took a 9:47am train to Brasov, Romania. It went painfully slow. We were scheduled to arrive at 12:50pm - but only got in at 2pm.

I then rolled the dice and went with a driver that had approached me at the train terminal. I wanted to get to Dracula's Castle - and really didn't feel like planning the bus, bus, taxi combination to make it happen. This guy gave me a price of 20 euro - he would drive me there and back, and wait while I was inside. Probably shouldn't have went, but I felt OK about it after working out the terms. Turned out well.

Dracula's Castle. Why not! Author Bram Stoker gave this image life. This place looks the part. The castle is set on a hill in a wooded area. You walk up this rock path to get there. Throw in some darkness, but a full moon out, do this walk by yourself --- it would be pretty spooky without knowing anything else about the legend.

Count Dracula was supposedly taken from Prince Vlad Dracula of Walachia (1431-1476), who allegedly lived in Bran Castle in the wild region of Transylvania. He was known for his cruelty, including his habit of having his perceived enemies impaled alive on enormous stakes.

I walked around all the rooms of the castle. The coolest part was this 'secret staircase' that went up to an outdoor balcony area. You can actually book the castle as a hotel for the night - for a large sum of money however.

Quick tour - back to Brasova. I'm currently in this cafe catching up. I have a train at 11pm for Suceava, Romania that will arrive at 7am. I'm doing back to back alnighters - one in a plane terminal and one on a train. I'm actually planning to sleep as much as possible on this train. It doesn't have sleeper cars however - seats only. These parts are known for pickpocketers - I'm gonna tie my bag to my arm somehow during the night.

Good Night from Translyvania.