Fake Plastic Earth

And the moment we’ve all been waiting for…DRACULA’S CASTLE!! Well, I’ve been itching to get there at least. The image of “Dracula”, as most people envision, never really existed. He wasn’t created, but definitely embellished, by Irish novelist Bram Stoker. In truth, Vlad III/Prince of Wallachia/Vlad the Impaler/Vlad Ţepeş is the basis for ‘Dracula’. He was a badass dude, to put it lightly, and made some serious history by impaling the Boyar class of Wallachia. His major motivation for such gruesome acts was to avenge his eldest brother and father. The history revolving ‘Dracula’ is quite extensive and interesting for the sadist at heart. My interest was pure curiousity. Apparently, Vlad the Impaler only made a single visit to this infamous castle, but I was still beyond excited to make the trek.

A very sweaty, hour long, bus ride later and we were among the hundreds of other tourists that had the same idea. Damn! I thought we’d be the only ones that thought of this.

We made the best of it. We took our time checking out all the little nooks and crannies of this huge castle; waiting for crowds to pass to take the perfect picture.

It wasn’t everything that I ever imagined, but it was pretty damn cool. Walking through the inspiration for such a classic novel, was definitely worth the trip. If we were there at night, with no one around, I’m sure that I would be scared to pieces.

The market at the end was just as entertaining. Any thing you could possibly sell at a tourist trap, they sold; mugs, ashtrays, picture books, stuffed toys…it was impressive. I wanted to buy it all! Who doesn’t want a Dracula throw rug and matching curtains?!

Bran Castle was different than I expected, mostly due to the amount of tourists, but it was worth it. If you’re ever in Transylvania, it’s a must see. Just don’t expect anything too scary unless your afraid of line ups.

~Josie

Transylvania was the perfect jump back into our Eastern European trip. Like I mentioned in a previous post, it’s one of those places I thought I would only read about. Bucharest was fun, but I was more interested in seeing the small Gothic towns of Romania. Brasov was our first stop.

We flew into Bucharest from the Netherlands and took a train headed North.

Our 2.5 hour train ride turned into 7 hours. Hardly anyone spoke English and the only info we could get was ‘accident’. We had a lot of time to kill.

Crazy 8 Count Down

Day one didn’t go past noon before we found ourselves in a tattoo shop. We were looking to get tattoos in Amsterdam, but it was wickedly expensive. We took a quick browse through their work and decided to just go for it. The shop looked remarkably clean and the Heavy Metal dudes, that ran the shop, seemed stoked to have us. How bad could a ridiculously cheap Transylvanian tattoo really be?

Neil went first

The day a new chapter began

The rest of the day was spent checking out the sites. The first point of interest was Biserica Neagră or Black Church. The latter name was due to a fire in 1689. Unfortunately, like most other churches, they did not allow photography. We snapped some photos of the outside. Still impressive.

We climbed the two watch towers that over looked the city

Both towers had a million rickety old stairs that made me realize just how out of shape I really was. The view was totally worth it.

The city itself didn’t have a lot of typical tourist sites. It didn’t need to. Just being there was the experience. Most of the streets were cobblestone surrounded by buildings literally built hundreds of years ago during the Gothic Era.

Literally the weirdest statue ever

Little ‘ol baba’s sold $1 ice cream and homemade crafts in the popular walking square. Flocks of swallows dive bombed tourists enjoying their coffee in one of many cafes along the main walking street. The smell of fresh popcorn filled the air; only $0.50 a bag.

I loved it! This was the Romania I was looking for; trapped in time. Now all I needed was Dracula…..