I feel like this is the one thing most people know about Romania – “Dracula’s Castle.” I am really phoning it in, I know, but here is what Wiki says:

Marketed outside Romania as Dracula’s Castle, it is presented as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula (1897). There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, voivode of Wallachia, whose byname ‘Drăculea’ resembles that of Dracula. Stoker’s description of Dracula’s crumbling fictional castle also bears no resemblance to Bran Castle.

Some of the more negative travelers will tell you that this is nothing more than a tourist trap and I would have to vehemently disagree. Take the whole Dracula element out of it and this is still a legitimate piece of medieval history. It was built in the 1300s for God’s sake! It contains art and furniture curated by Queen Marie but even if the whole Castle was empty, I’d still want to go there. It is so old! And so eerily perched upon a hill!

I do apologize, but this is going to be a big photo dump because I was acting like a kid in Japan who was given her first Nikon and unlimited rolls of film. I wanted to snap every nook and cranny, but I did find some restraint, I promise.

Henry booked us the full package (wow, spend it daddy) for once, opting to go for the guided tour with “skip the line” plus the optional torture chamber and Queen’s elevator thingie at the end. I didn’t care about all that shit but was happy that we had the skip the line thing because this place gets crowded and fast. We were the first people at the gate though! One lone traveler joined us after a bit and I was quietly laughing to myself because he also looked like a coaster thoosie so it was making me feel like we were waiting for a theme park to open and not freaking Dracula’s Castle in Romania.

Our guide’s name was Mihnea and I will be honest and say he was not giving docent. If I had to guess upon meeting him on the street, I would think he was part of the Romanian Intelligence Service of whatever is more secret than that, even. He was all in black and super mysterious with just a touch of “possibly a vampire.” I didn’t get any pictures of him but he’s possible in some of the video I recorded that day.

This was before the official tour started. We had to walk up the long and steep walkway with Mihnea and then he had us wait here for him while he did BTS tour guide stuff or attend to some secret government espionage thing. WE DIDN’T ASK.

Did you know that Vlad the Impaler never even lived in this Castle? Although it’s alleged that he may have been held prisoner there at some point.

I also find it interesting that while the rest of the world associates Vlad with Dracula and considers him a veritable monster, he is regarded as a national hero in Romania and I love that.

In modern times (aka the 1900s when I was born), Queen Marie lived here until her death in the 30s (who reads this thing for exact dates, anyway?), and then her daughter, Princess Illeana, was driven out in the 40s by the Communist regime and a decade later, the Castle was opened to the public as a museum.

JUST A LITTLE HISTORY FOR YOU.

Coat of Arms.

A window.

Oh! Through that doorway is the famous super steep and narrow staircase that E V E R Y T R A V E L Y O U T U B E R records. And yes, your girl also recorded the ascent, LOL.

Our guide told us to watch our heads at the top and then the lone tourist who looked like a coaster thoosie totally thwacked his forehead REAL HARD and I felt so bad but also had to turn around quickly because I was afraid I was going to start laughing.

The view out of every window was so on point. Probably not back in the day when flaming arrows were headed straight for you though. Just my guess.

You guys, in every single video or picture I’ve seen from people touring this place, the courtyard and walkways have been PACKED with poeple. But since we were FIRST! there was NO ONE ruining our shots! Definitely worth getting there early on a weekday.

Mihnea scolded some woman who started to encroach on our area while he was taking our picture. Worth the extra price of getting the guided tour! Don’t fuck with Mihnea!

That’s the town of Bran down there.

Sorry, I was obsessed with these old ass shingles. Don’t mind me.

Family tree.

Of course, they do play into the Dracula bit by having several little exhibits related to Dracula in media/pop culture and also the origin of vampire lore in Romanian culture, as well, more specifically Strigoi. 

I learned about strigoi from my old Darkchat friend, Cinn, in case anyone cares.

A group of middle-aged American women pushed their way in front of us in this room and Mihnea was like “Oh hell nah” and made an exasperated throat noise because they were talking so loudly while he was trying to do his spiel.

ALWAYS THE AMERICANS.

You guys, Princess Illeana gave up being a royal, turned into a nun, and died in ELWOOD CITY, PA! That’s not too far from us! We were like, “OMG WE HAVE TO GO AND SEE HER GRAVE” and of course have not made it there yet. Maybe this weekend?! I just thought that was a really cool semi-Pittsburgh connection.

Maybe this castle isn’t as grand as Peles, but I loved every inch of it.

Shingle Time!

TORTURE CHAMBER TIME! Mihnea waited outside of it for us, LOL. I was glad to be in there just the two of us so I could hoarsely whisper vile and depraved threats to Henry.

WINDOWS IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER. (It actually wasn’t a torture chamber per se but just the section of the castle where all the various torture devices were displayed. God forbid I should give inaccurate information!)

I kept trying to push Henry inside of this, LOL. Why the smiling face, tho???

Some lady was very sweet and took these pictures for us outside of the gift shop. She was either American or Canadian and pounced as soon as she saw me attempt to take a selfie of us. Super nice lady!

Then we bought a bunch of shit in the gift shop (Henry even bought a Bran Castle hat, LOL, dork) and parted ways with Mihnea as we had reached the end. Since we bought that extra elevator experience thing, we got to leave by going down the elevator that Queen Marie installed so she could have easier access to the Royal Gardens. Of course the current elevator has some Dracula-y video show playing in it which is kind of corny but also – when in Romania, right? It deposited us in this underground walkway thing that was lined with video screens showing different scenes of Vlad and vampire history in Romania. I thought it was really cool, actually, but there was this couple that came down right after us and they blew past all of that and went straight to the end where you could have your picture taken.

“Why would you skip all of this??” I whisper-cried to Henry, because I thought it was actually really cool and worth the upcharge of the deluxe “we’ll never be here again” package we splurged on. And the best part is that the picture at the end was included in that!

Worth it.

After we got our picture printed in yet another gift shop, we left through a door that spilled us out onto a lower courtyard area.

Sorry, a million pictures of me but bro, I’m at Bran Castle. Let me have this, please.

From here, we went back down to where all the vendors were, bought some magnets and postcards, I almost bought a fake Labubu (intentionally), Henry peed in an underground bathroom, and we did the Bran haunted house!

We tried to get food but this was our first taste of WE HATE TOURISTS attitude from the locals which was kind of hilarious considering these people were vending in quite possibly THE most tourist-trappy area of all Romania. I was trying to ask for Placinta cu Branza which is like a savory cheese pie but I wasn’t saying placinta with the exact accent required so the girl was like YOU’RE A MORON which I inferred from her impatient huffing and tone. Then she sent me to some other girl who was more English-y but also even more busy and was like IT’S NOT READY YET. YOU CAN HAVE THIS OR THAT, OR I DON’T KNOW and then stalked off and I was like OR I CAN LEAVE BYE because I was scared, you guys. These were legit Romani I’m pretty sure and they were not fucking around.

So we left that area and started walking back to the car and saw another little food stand thing that also had placinta but when we tried to order it the older woman sternly shook her head NO so…no placinta for us, fam.

This was just the beginning of what would end up being the worst day of the whole trip NOT TO BE DRAMATIC NO NOT ME, NOT EVER.

Also, it occurred to me that I never posted the video recap from the day before this! If you are hard-pressed for something to watch, here it is.

No comments