Transylvania: where vampires still roam the forrests

(I’m too tired to write anything coherent so for now this will have to do. Maybe over the next few days I will be able to revise this post.)

Transylvania is famed as the home of Dracula, steeped in mystery and legend. Yet it is so much more. First and foremost it is green. I do not think Ireland could be any greener. The forests are incredibly dense and lush; the rolling hills never have a brown speck; green plains fill the valleys; the orchard floors are covered in grass.

Our little green Metiz took us up through the Romanian plains, into the mountains and to Brasov, a decently sized city with a historic core that has the feel of a little village. It is home to the narrowest street in the world, a number of beautiful churches and a “BRASOV” equivalent of the Hollywood sign.

On our first day we drove to Bran to walk through the famed Bram Stoker castle and to fill up on our vampire lore. Part of Stoker’s inspiration came from Vlad Draculae, ruling prince of Wallachia from 1456 till 1462. He posthumously gained the moniker “Tepes” (Impaler) after his favoured form of punishing his enemies – impaling. A dull wooden stake was carefully inserted into the anus, driven slowly through the body avoiding vital organs, until it emerged from the mouth, resulting in hours, even days, of agony before death. Vlad was later vilified in history, but to many Romanians he was considered the equivalent of a local Robin Hood and was by no means any more brutal than most of his contemporaries.

From Bran we headed into the countryside and into little villages in search of various picuresque fortified churches that abound in this region. Our stops included the amazing churches in Prejmer, Harman and Sanpetru followed by a very enjoyable hike through some fields and hills overlooking the entire valley.

Our next day was to include a stop in Fagaras to see another fortified church and then a trip through the mountains to Poienari, the true home of Vlad Dracula that is only reachable by climbing over 1400 stairs. The loop we had planned was to be about 400km and should have taken us about 5 hours to drive with a few hours to climb the stairs. However, things don’t always turn out as planned and today was the perfect example.

We headed up towards Poienari over the mountain pass road. However, after 35 km of serpentine driving we came to a dead end. The pass was closed at least until June. Looking at the map we realized we could go back to the main highway and attempt a circular detour that might take about an hour and a half. Unfortunately Romanian roads and Romanian maps don’t always correspond. What on the map was shown to be the same type of road as the one we had just traveled down proved to be little more than a dirt road through tiny villages with our little Matiz having a hard time clearing most of the potholes. It took us over 2 hours to drive approximately 35 km but we finally made it to the turnoff for Poienari.

Our second attempt at reaching Poienari proved equally unsuccessful. After about 20 minutes of pothole filled road we found our way blocked by a gate and a guard who said we had to turn around. So we continued through the villages, alternating between short stretches of paved road, longer stretches of paved but incredibly “holly” road, and even longer sections of mere dirt.
We finally came to yet another turnoff point for Poienari. The sign said 3.5 km to a nearby town from where it was supposed to be yet another 4 km to the main road. However, after 2 km our little Metiz was barely fitting and to add to it was sliding backwards on the clay. After some sliding, pushing and stalling we decided to give up.

Three failed attempts, 8 hours of driving, endless villages, numerous herds of sheep, countless horses roaming the countryside, a family of little piglets, a week old yearling, a “flock” of baby geese and the occasional cow wondering down the main roads of the towns, we still had not seen Vlad’s home and no longer had the time to see it.

By 5:30pm we managed to show up in a town where we had hoped to be 3 hours earlier (after seeing Vlad’s castle). While there we grabbed our first bite to eat and then went to check out a beautiful monestary before continuing our drive back to Brasov.

We arrived back at our Pension at 10pm, exhausted and with a rattling vehicle (it now makes clickity noises when in neutral and a very weird rattling noise when in gear). Despite the day not having gone as planned, it was nevertheless an enjoyable and memorable day.

Tomorrow it’s off to see a few more of Transylvania’s gems and then back to Bucharest from where we will be taking a night train to Belgrade.