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dracula tourism

Bran Castle, located in Transylvania, matches Americans' Hollywood idea of where Dracula lived. The architecture screams gothic, but where is the foreboding cloud action?

Built as a fortress in 1212 when Rome and Luxemburg argued over the area, Queen Marie of Romania enjoyed summers here until they booted her out in 1948. The castle has been given back to the Hapsburgs, they've graciously spent quite a lot of money de-decaying it and scattering bear rugs and crowns about. In 2009, the castle opened as a museum and a place to rent for private parties, for the red-lined-dress-capes-for-men crowd, presumeably.

Wandering through the dining room, I thought of my favorite part in the book, where Dracula pretends to have servants and sneaks around fixing dinner and preparing rooms, scrubbing pots and making beds behind his guest's back.

The foundation that runs the castle does a good job explaining who Vlad the Impaler was, one of his many middle names was Dracula, and local beliefs about undead ghosts. People really do hang garlic over their doors in this area, but signing the guest book on the way out, Peter and I were embassassed by the Americans disappointed with the castle who found it "uninteresting." They weren't actually attacked by a vampire, so they want their $2 admission fee back?

We wandered past carved doors, ate blood-orange flavored black gumdrops, admired the sword collection and enjoyed the hospitality of the imaginary Count Dracula. We didn't see any sharp teeth climbing up the creepy secret staricase in the house, but saw plenty them for sale in the stalls at the base of the castle.

the road to lake balea, the transfăgărășan highway, yeah that

You know you've started your Romanian roadtrip and have left Bucharest behind when you have to drive around horse carts.

The Top Gear guys drove the road to Lake Balea last spring--in a Masarati, a Austin Martin and a Ferrari. We weren't really sure what to expect--maybe we should have watched the show before the drive?

But it started off pretty.

And then got stunning.

Then we started climbing up and seeing snow. Kind of a lot of snow.

Then it got ridiculous.

Since I've been home and watched the show, I know now that the Top Gear guys describe this road as the "best race track turns in the world, knitted together."

The road went up and up and up, a million hairpin turns, to an elevation of 6000 feet, then we came to what looked like end of the road. I'd heard the pass can be closed when it snows, but I didn't expect it to be closed in October. We drove hours of switchbacks and can't get to the lake?

As we approched what we thought was the end of the road, next to a WC with the best view in the world, we saw a tunnel.

You come out of the tunnel, (the longest in Romania) pass the lake by mistake, have to TURN AROUND on this road where there is absolutely no turning around, then go back up an even steeper road to the tiny alpine lake, almost completely frozen. The hotel couldn't be any more on the lake, in fact, we were a little afraid of it falling in.

They build an ice hotel in December, so I can't wait to go back.

In the night our water bottles in the car froze, so I was glad I'd stuffed the dog into a suitcase and smuggled her up to our room. She has no idea she's thrown up three times on what the Top Gear guys call the "best driving road in the world." 

at least I didn't run into dracula

Who else besides one of the three little pigs lives in this house? On my running route, between our house and the embassy, lives, I assume, Grandmother, of Little Red RIding Hood fame.

When I was five or six years old I HEARD, with a wheelbarrow full of coins, in the hall, coming towards my room, the toothfairy. Seeing this wolf/stray dog that looks exactly LIKE a wolf right in front of that little house felt like that. I'm never going running in my red riding hood again!

vintage horror

The running path by our house looks like it might be good for mushrooming. And I'm pretty sure The Big Bad Wolf is wearing Grandmother's nightgown and glasses and waiting for Little Red Riding Hood at the end of that path. 

And look what came in the mail today! 600 pages of Annotated Dracula, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman! I'm excited. Creeped out, but excited. 

one month in, we started with

1. As opposed to the French school, where you just read, at the American school before you read, you discuss why reading is important.

2. Still need to find the Brancusi section of the National Art Gallery, but Van Brughel could sure paint flowers. 

3. Camille was right, it's sort of like France and sort like Africa.

4. Africa with reallly good wine. 

5. And malls that have Starbucks with wifi, Mossimo Dutti and yes, Cinnabon. And a charming, sort of dive-y old town with antiques, art supplies and wedding dress stores galore, like a five-hundred-year-old Eureka, California (Or a 30%-as-hip Pearl district in Portland) with a million times more outdoor cafes, better weather, more grandiose architecture and cobblestone streets. If this were Portland it would be SO full of itself.

6. Esperanto fans, attente! Bonjour for good day, bona sera for good evening! Mersi, arriveder, casa, unday (where), aichi (here), maina (tomorrow) da and nu--all the languages you know, combined into one! We are signed up for official language training, but the embassy just moved, so like everything, they are overwhelmed and will start...sometime, maybe maina.

7. Sunny and in the 80's everyday so far, but you can have the brand new embassy pool on a Saturday all to yourself.

8. Extreme lack of manhole covers!

9. Today while running I passed six street dogs. None of them have bitten me so far.

10. The best part of Romania is out of Bucharest, and we haven't even been there yet