24 April 2025 – Bran

Miles driven today = 0

Total Miles to date = 4,090

Vampire Camping is roughly a mile walk down a straight road to the centre of Bran.  The town doesn’t look anything special until you reach a couple of tight bends and suddenly out of nowhere there is Bran Castle, which most people know as the physical embodiment of Count Dracula’s lair.

The connection with Dracula is actually tenuous at best.  Although he never visited Transylvania, Bram Stoker accurately described the positioning of Dracula’s Castle from the books he read in Whitby Library, and it was nowhere near Bran.  He may also have read about the spooky Castle but there are many other Transylvanian piles which could have equally fitted the bill.

Bran Castle also had very little to do with Vlad Tepes (aka Vlad The Impaler) from whom the inspiration for Stoker’s Count was loosely based, although he may have briefly been imprisoned here at one point.  We’ll be learning a lot more about him when we visit his birthplace tomorrow.

The Castle was actually built by Teutonic Knights between 1377 and 1382 in order to protect borders and local trade routes.  At one point it was manned by a garrison of English Mercenaries. 

Transylvania became part of Greater Romania in 1918 and shortly afterwards Bran Castle was gifted to Queen Marie by the City of Brasov.  She made some significant changes to the Castle including adding the top two floors.  A number of the rooms have been restored to appear how they would have done in her time.  The table here includes eggs which were traditionally dyeed using red onion skins on Good Friday.

In the “Gothic Room” next door a lady was hard at work painting eggs rather more elaborately.  I don’t think one of the chicken eggs would have made it home in one piece in the van but there were rather more sturdy wooden alternatives.

This is the former Council Chamber where important strategic and economic decisions were made.  During Queen Marie’s refurbishment a secret staircase between the floors below and above was found behind the fireplace.

A very steep and narrow staircase brought us up to the Music Room, although the only instrument on display here was the piano.

Up in the attic there are several rooms which deal with Transylvanian superstitions about the undead.  These were also thought to have inspired Bram Stoker in writing Dracula when he read about them.  This poor chap is being visited by the Iele and The Grim Reaper simultaneously.

A Vampire Hunter’s tool kit.

We weren’t sure if this person was supposed to be Solomonar or a Werewolf.  It all got very confusing and rather overcrowded.

The Count’s Cape.

Heading back downstairs again we entered a series of rooms which formed an apartment belonging to Queen Marie’s husband Ferdinand I.  The doors were painted with floral motifs at the request of the Queen.

Ferdinand’s bedroom complete with Crown.

The Royal Dining Room.

Displays of Weaponry and Shields in the Armory.

Suits of Armour.

Balconies run all around the upper floors.

There were a couple of additional exhibits which you could pay a few extra Lei to see.  A museum of torture instruments and also a “time tunnel” which is located beneath the castle in the old water cistern.  Anybody who suffered from claustrophobia was advised not to bother and Lisa had found that staircase up to the Music Room claustrophobic enough so we skipped both.

Unsurprisingly the Castle shop had all sorts of vampire related goodies to entice you.

This stone cross is positioned next to the Castle entrance.  It was first erected in 1751 in a Monastery in Bucharest but Queen Marie brought it here to serve as a memorial for local people killed in World War I.  It was buried in a greenhouse to protect it during the Communist regime but rediscovered and reinstalled in 2006.

Back down at the bottom of the hill we had a quick look around a reproduction of how a Romanian village like Bran may have looked in Medieval times.

Unfortunately the main museum building was closed and all the information boards around the village were only in Romanian with no English translations.

Most of the rest of the area around the Castle is taken up with row after row of stalls selling both tourist tat and local produce at heavily inflated prices.

So we headed off to find ourselves some brunch.  These are Sarmale.  Cabbage leaves stuffed with spiced pork and rice and served with bacon, soured cream and, of course, a healthy couple of dollops of polenta.

We started heading vaguely back in the direction of the campsite but took one of the back roads rather than the main thoroughfare, which was very busy. There are lots of very plush looking houses here, although we assumed that many of them are B&B accommodation.

Something caught our eye on Google Maps.  It looked like somebody had painted up an old Castle like they do at Kelburn in Scotland, so we went to investigate.  Having climbed a very steep hill we found it was in fact part of an enormous kids play area.

Across the road was another and even more impressive fantasy building.

Cinderella is off to the Ball.  Not sure why.  She already has her handsome Prince!

So we mooched back to the van and stopped for a chat with some of the locals on the way.

Our Greek data contract has finally expired on the van mi-fi so we have had to revert to reading actual books again, which we did, sitting in the sunshine for a large chunk of this afternoon while the cherry blossom swirled around us.

25 April 2025 - Sighisoara