DRACULA’S CASTLE - LEGEND AND TRUE STORY travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

When Bram Stoker wrote his classic novel, Dracula, he an entire genre of vampire movies, from the pallid horror and busty swooning of cheesy films like Brides Of Dracula to the angsty teenage smarts of The Lost Boys (’My own brother, a goddamn, shit sucking vampire. Boy, you wait till mom finds out, buddy’).The first documentary attestation of Bran Castle is the letter written in 1377 by the Hungarian Ludovic I D’Anjou, giving the inhabitants of Brasov some privileges.The legend about Dracula - stoker’s story is based on the life of Vlad Tepes/Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476), a ruler revered by Romanians for standing up to the Ottoman Empire. Known as one of the most dreadful enemies of the Turks, Vlad started organizing the state and enforcing the law by applying death penalty and impaling all those he considered enemies: robbers, cunning priests, treacherous noblemen, beggars, usurper Saxons. In fact he fought against everybody who tried to replace him either by his step brother Vlad the Monk or by his cousin Dan the Young. The historians nicknamed him Vlad Tepes while people say he was Count Dracula because he used to sign with his father’s name, Dracul “The Devil”. Dracula is derived from the Romanian word for devil or dragon.
Castle Dracula - in 1459 Vlad the Impaler ordered hundreds of arrested traitors to build a fortress for emergencies above the mountain. The surrounding area belongs to Fagaras Mountains, which frequently are over 2,400 meters height. No prisoner survived. To revenge his wife’s death during a siege in 1461, he launched a large scale raid against Turkish Empire crossing the Danube river deeply into the Balkans. As a result of first proper “blitzkrieg” war of medieval history, Dracula killed 28,000 Turks so cruelly that he established a bloody reputation around Europe. This place inspired as much imagination as FF Coppola persuaded his fans with the myth of the Count Vampire of Transylvania. Still, legends and facts remained for centuries, far beyond just a fiction movie.His castle is supposed to be Bran’s Castle since its narrow corridors constitute a mysterious labyrinth of ghostly nooks and secret chambers easy to hide a “vampire”.
Situated only 28km southwest of Brasov, the Bran Castle is one of the most popular tourist site in Romania. The castle is perched atop a 60m peak in the centre of Bran village. The Bran mountain pass was the main route into Wallachia from Transylvania.Bran Castle is famous for its association with the Dracula legend. The 15th-century Wallachian prince upon whom the novelist Bram Stroker is supposed to have his blood thirsty vampire connected to the Bran Castle. In truth, Dracula may have attacked and briefly captured the castle in 1460, during one of his raids on the Burzen Land.
The castle has four towers. The oldest tower, Powder House Tower, houses the Cannon’s Gallery and the Gunner’s Room. During the 15th century, the Observation Tower and Eastern Tower were added. In 1622 the Gate Tower was added, a Polish attic was attached and the south curtain wall was thickened up to 3,5m thick. More renovations took place in 1723 and in 1883. The fountain in the inner yard conceals a labyrinth of secret underground passages. The tunnel opened onto the park grounds where the famous gardner Patula planted bushes brought from Balcic, dahlias and roses being the Queen Marie’s favorites flowers.

In the 18th century the fortress was the house of the Austrians frontier guards. In 1836 Bran became the official border and the defense role of the fortress was no longer a priority. In 1920, the Brasov Town council donated Bran Castle to Queen Maria of Great Romania, who lived there with the royal family till 1947. Since 1947 the Castle is opened as a museum. The fortified medieval Bran Castle is often referred to as Dracula’s Castle, looking as a vampire counts abode should look with a forbidding facade, towers and ramparts rising out of the forest, and perched high on a steep cliff face against a dramatic mountain background.
This majestic castle still stands today in the Carpathian mountains….