In the land of Dracula

I traveled to Romania not long ago and yet if someone would have asked me even two years ago if I thought I would end up in the home land of Dracula, I would have said, "probably not". Looking back, all I knew about Romania as a young person were two things; that Romania contained the State of Transylvania, where Dracula came from and it's where the Gypsies come from. Neither of which are completely true. Yes, Transylvania is the homeland of Dracula, the make believe character dreamt up by the Irish author, Bram Stoker. It is also a country with a very high population of Roma (gypsies)

Was there ever a real Count Dracula? Well if you go by the man Stoker based his character on, than yes, there was. Prince Vlad Tepes (or Vlad the Impaler) an unusually cruel warlord that terrorized his enemies and at many times his own people. He never really lived in Transylvania though and the famed Dracula's Castle (Bran Castle) was probably never even seen by him... but it is a fairy tale like place and one could make up stories of fantastical beings living there.

The other "fact" I had known about Romania, or so I thought, was that this is where the gypsies come from. It wasn't until I finally started reading about the country I was headed to that I learned that even though there is a large population of Roma there (that isn't what they are called in Romanian by the way) they didn't actually come from this country. They had been brought there as slaves by the Ottoman Empire from Asia, probably India.

All that aside, that was what I knew of the place. Two fictional things and yet these are the things I think most of us outside that country know of it. When I told friends where I was going, all I heard was one question, "Are you going to see Dracula's Castle?" I also can't count how many vampire jokes I heard. Fun stuff, yes, and it is fun to joke about vampires and garlic by the bed. However then I started reading about the country and deciding on what part I wanted to visit after my Rotary journey was over. Oh, yeah, by the way, that was the original mission of the trip in July, Rotary. I traveled with many of my fellow Rotarians to bring wheelchairs to the disabled in Oradea, Romania as well as to help with other projects there. So anyway, once the Rotary portion was over, I planned two weeks of travel. I soon learned that of all places I wanted to see, Transylvania was the top on the list (the land of Dracula). No, the toothy, blood sucker was not the reason. The reason was that the more I read about the country the more I found that this was the place to see. The Transylvania mountains along with quaint medieval walled towns and fortified churches were too hard to resist. They seemed to be the "must see" places.

So that is how I ended up in the land of Dracula. I had almost two fantastic weeks spread amongst three cities; Sighisoara, Brasov, and Sibiu. All are beautiful in their own way. Sighisoara with it's old walled-in, medieval section sitting high atop a hill. Brasov, sprawling at the base of mountains and easily less than an hour away from three amazing castles (Bran, Rasnov, and Peles) and finally my favorite of all three, Sibiu, with it's weird eyelid windows. Yes, the building's have funny little windows that look like sleepy eyes looking down on you. It can be a little unnerving at times. I kept imagining one of them blinking when I wasn't looking. They were built during the time of the Reformation when the newly empowered Protestants wanted their 'flock' to always remember "someone was watching"! Yes, it was creepy. However the city is charming, easy to get around and I had a great place to stay at a small family run hostel. It is one place I will go back to someday.

So I came to the land of Dracula not really knowing what to expect or that I would even find it an enjoyable place. It wasn't a place I had ever thought I would end up and yet I'm so glad I did go there. I'm so glad I was able to look beyond the kitchy Dracula themed tourist traps and see a beautiful land. I'll have to write more about it soon so that others can see there's more to the land of Dracula than fangs.