Our visit to Bran Castle today takes us 230 km north-west of Bucharest.  Approximately half-way along the journey, we stopped at Sinaia, an alpine resort town, nestled beneath the Transylvanian Alps.  Sinaia takes its name from the 17th-century monastery built by a Romanian nobleman after he undertook a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai in Egypt. Nicknamed The Carpathian Pearl, it was best known for being the summer residence of the Romanian Royal family.

We didn’t have much time or information about Sinaia and spent our hour here  walking up and down the main street, checking out the buildings and stately old homes alond the roadside.  Although old, they looked quite grand and obviously must have been inhabited by nobility in the past.  We walked up the slope to the cable car station and were tempted to take a ride up the hill.  Given the huge interval between scheduled trips going up, we thought it was unsafe as there was no information of the returns trips.  We certainly didn’t want to miss our trip to Bran castle.

From Sinaia, some people took off by train to explore Brasov, whereas the majority of us went in search of Dracula.

Bran Castle, a fortified medieval castle which is often referred to as Dracula’s Castle, was built in 1377 for strategic and economic reasons.  With the expansion of the Ottoman empire, it was vital to protect nearby Brasov from invaders. One of the most important access ways connecting Transylvania to Wallachia, crossed this area and Bran Castle also served as a customs station.  The boyars (the nobility)  had the right to collect fees from visitors and peasants. The fortress had an extra income from: selling cheese, milk and muttons and from manufacturing wood.  Today the Castle is still collecting fees, being entrance fees from tourists like us.  We also had to pay 10 leis each to take snaps in the Castle.

The castle’s rooms and towers surround an inner courtyard. Some rooms are connected through underground passages to the inner court. The spiral stairways are quite narrow and you’d wonder how it was possible for Dracula, to sweep around the corridors or down the staircase at any speed.

In 1920, the people of Brasov who owned the castle offered it as a gift to Queen Marie of Romania, and the castle soon became her favorite residence.  She often visited the castle with her favourite daughter Iliana.

Bran is home to a rich collection of Romanian and foreign furniture and art items from the 14th-19th Centuries. The castle sits high atop a 200 ft. tall rock overlooking the picturesque village of Bran. On the grounds below there is an open-air ethnographic museum of old village buildings with exhibits of furniture, household objects and costumes.  They’re not very well maintain, however, if you’ve survived Dracula and have time to spare, it’s nice to just walk around the grounds.

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog

Count Dracula is more than 100 years old .. and still alive!  We’ve all heard stories of Count Dracula during our youth, some more than others, but much less is known about the figure from whom Bram Stoker drew his inspiration for his novel.  Being a scary cat myself, I must admit to avoiding any movies or television shows where there’s any element of Dracular in them.

Vlad Tepes was born in December 1431 in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. Vlad’s father was the Governor of Transylvania and  had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about a year before Vlad’s birth. The order was a semi-military and religious society, comparable to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or even to the Teutonic Order of Knights. The Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli, originally created this secret fraternal order of the knights in 1387, mainly to protect the interests of Christianity and to crusade against the Turks. However, the boyars, who were the nobles of Romania, believed that the dragon is associated with the Devil and decided to call Vlad’s father “Dracul” which in Romanian language, means “devil” and “Dracula” has the equivalent of “the son of the Devil.”

When Dracul became prince of Wallachia (one of three Romanian provinces) in the winter of 1436-1437, he took up residence at the palace of Tirgoviste, its princely capital. Vlad followed his father and lived for six years at the princely court. One version of the story is that in 1442, in order to keep the Turks at bay, Dracul sent his son Vlad and his younger brother Radu, to Constantinople, as hostages of the Sultan Murad II. Young Vlad was held there until 1448 and his Turkish captivity was a major influence in Vlad’s upbringing and his ultimate sadistic tendencies. He adopted a very dark view of life and learned the Turkish method of impalement on stakes.  Eventually, the Turks set Vlad free after informing him of his father’s assassination in 1447. Young Vlad also learned about his older brother’s death and how he had been tortured and buried alive by the boyars of Tirgoviste.

When Vlad was 17 years old, he made his first major move towards seizing the Wallachian throne. He had support from the pasha Mustafa Hassan who lent him a force of Turkish cavalry and a contingent of troops. Vlad became the ruler of Wallachia in July of 1456. During his six-year reign he committed many atrocities, and hence established his controversial reputation of Vlad the Impaler.

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog

Driving around the city centre in Bucharest, you wouldn’t be wrong in sensing that the place has an air of French influence about it, for example the wide boulevarded streets and the Arcul de Triumf.  This is because the aristocracy in the past used to send their kids to France for studies and they in turn imported French ideas and designs.  The Arcul de Triumf is an example of this and was built in 1922 to commemorate the dead from Romania’s Great War. 

Another example is the Carol I Park which was designed by the French landscape artist Eduard Redont and installed by the city’s authorities from 1900-6.  Today it is dominated by the massive Monument to the Heroes of the Struggle for Freedom and Socialism. 

Driving north of the city, you’ll come across Herastrau Park which extends for 187 hectares from the Arcul de Triumf to the Baneasa Bridge.  The lake in the park is also called Baneasa lake.  Ban in Romanian means prince and Baneasa is a little less than a prince.  Herastrau Park is a nice place for strolling around and you could also take a ride in the lake.

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog

Romania’s bloody revolutions of December 1989 and June 1990 remain some of the country’s darkest moments in modern history.  At Revolution Square this afternoon, we are reminded of the bloody murders of hundreds of people, hundreds of others were injured and thousands were illegally arrested during a three-day long government supported riot.  The Mineriada of June 1990 is believed to be linked to the 1989 revolt.  The real stories behind both these horrendous events remain guarded secrets.

On the morning of December 21, 1989, a large crowd that was brought in to stage cheer Nicolae Ceausescu instead jeered him on live television during a rally in Plata Resolutiel.  The rally soon turned into an anti-communist riot and things got out of control in the square.  Gunfire erupted to disperse the crowd, however it’s unclear as to whether this was order by members of the Ceaucescu regime or the National Salvation Front who were about to seize power.  Could the truth not be established due to mass confusion or a case of censorship?

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog

Romania’s most famous landmark is Paltul Parlamentului, or more commonly known as Casa Poporului.  It was built during the darkest days of the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.  It is 12 storeys high and comprises some 5,000 rooms.  The building is shrouded in rumours and mysteries, however today it is home to the Romanian parliament.

One of our travel companions told the story of how he was a little short of the amount of Lei needed for the entrance fee and asked for the shortfall to be paid in Euros.  The attendance flatly said No, inspite of protestation by the visitors that they had come all the way from Canada to visit, and the answer was still No!  Luckily for them a very kind gentlemen came to their rescue and offered to give them the few Leis required.  You would have thought that they would train their workers that the building could do with some funding to recoup for past loses.  The story reminds us of another incident in Sinaia where some ladies were very keen to buy souvenir vases that the country is famous for.  The tourist shop would only accept Euros and no USD was accepted.  You could easily go to the money changer next to the tourist shop to get your currency exchanged and yet the tourist shop did not feel that this was a service that could generate more sales for them.  Maybe, it is me who’s missing the point!  This country does not believe in sales targets for its workers.  Aren’t we all always complaining about the increasing sales targets on practically everything at work?  Mmme…

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog

This morning, with much relief, we left Sunny Beach and made our way to Bucharest.  We travelled along the same road that we did yesterday when we went to Balchik, passing through Varna again.  A few of us thought that we would have been better off staying in Varna than in tacky Sunny Beach.  Departure time was early as we had to cross the Bulgarian and Romanian borders today, an interesting exercise as some of the border guards appear to be still stuck in Communist ways and that the 1990 revolution had no bearing on them at all.  Their scowling and unfriendly looks were enough to give concern to the tour guide.

We arrived in Bucharest in the afternoon and had sufficient time to do a quick city tour, which included the Parliament Palace, University Square and the former Communist headquarters.  Enormous resources were used to build the 5,000 room Parliament building, now deemed a white elephant as it’s not used effectively. It must give the people angst when they have to do without bare essentials and yet this monstronsity of a building stare them in the face everyday.  There were some thoughts of destroying the building after Ceausescu died, however some argued that although the people’s resources were utilized to build the Parliament Palace, at least it was built from Romanian material and architecture and therefore should be preserved.  I agree.

Legend has it that Bucharest was discovered by Bucur, a shepherd, who came to look for grass for his animals.  He built a church somewhere on the eastern bank of Dambovita, but its exact location or time is not known.  By the time of the reign of Vlad Tepes (1459-1462) there was a palace and court here and Historic Bucharest had since evolved around the palace.  Bucharest today has a population of 2 million living in six districts, each in charge of its own town planning.

Helen

Travel Signposts Blog