Halloween is big business in Romania, although as an Eastern Orthodox country this celebration has no tradition here. But kids love to dress up, young people love to party and businessmen love to make money. Good money - the present owners of the famous Dracula Castle have managed to bring some 1000 Americans for a wild Halloween Party. At $329 a ticket -that’s not bad, not bad at all!
What never ceases to wonder me is why would someone travel across the world just to spend one night in some old castle that has absolutely nothing to do with the fictitious character of Bram Stoker’s novel? A lengthy and costly trip so they can get drunk in some random place. I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of places offering Halloween parties in the US so why go through all the trouble?
Since we didn't buy entrance tickets, that's the best shot I got, sorry!
Earlier this year, when we went for a trip to the city of Brasov, we decided to go see the nearby Dracula Castle, in Bran. Not that we really cared, but it was something to do… The bus ride took longer than expected, then we stopped for lunch so when we got to the castle it was pretty late and the tickets, we discovered, were $12 a piece… Since we were not foreign tourists, we decided to skip it… too much money for a half an hour left of visiting time just to see a castle that has little historic value after all. We used that money to visit the haunted house and buy souvenirs - which I’m glad we did, because my son will be wearing his Dracula T-shirt tomorrow at a Halloween event, so I don’t get to feel like a horrible mother for not buying a cheap plastic costume at the store.
The Bran Castle rose to fame in the 1970s when a book called ‘In Search of Dracula’ proclaimed Stoker’s count was based on the 15th century Romanian ruler, Vlad the Impaler.
His real name was Vlad III, and his nickname of Tepes (Impaler) comes from his habit of impaling his many enemies.
He was born in 1431 in the Transylvanian fortress of Sighisoara, in central modern-day Romania. His father, Vlad II was a member of the Order of Dragons. In Latin, the word for dragon was draco, which later morphed into Dracula.A ruthless guy, who sometimes enjoyed impaling his political enemies, but still Vlad III was no vampire.
As for his ties to the Bran Castle, there are none. The castle had been built well before his birth. The most that can be said is that he might have passed through Bran in his campaigns against Brasov. He did kill a lot of the locals in those wars and the merchants in Braosv retaliated by publishing pamphlets depicting him as a blood-thirsty madman. At the time, people were just discovering Gutenberg wonderful invention, the printing press, and what better use than slander your enemy?
An 1883 picture of Bran Castle which might have inspired Stoker's 1897 novel
Legend has it that Bram Stoker saw a picture of the Bran Castle and he used it to describe the count’s Transylvanian abode. I guess that’s enough for people travelling to Romania to spend a night in the vampire’s lair...
