Visiting
Dracula
Srabonti Narmeen Ali
Apparently,
summer in Romania is much more beautiful and an overall more
pleasant experience than the wintertime. Geared up and ready
to brave the cold, however, I took a small trip to Romania's
capital, Bucharest in early February to visit my mother, who
now lives there. I found it to be, despite the snow and minus
10 degree temperature, quite beautiful. The architecture in
the capital dated back to the 16th century. Some of the newer
buildings, built by the ruthless dictator Nicolae Ceausescu,
stood proud -- a reminder, my mother said to me, of how the
Romanian people had suffered when Ceausescu left them starving
and poured all the country's money into infrastructure and paying
back World Bank loans.
Bucharest
was a blur of activities for me and my mother -- from going
to traditional Romanian restaurants, to going to the Ballet
(Swan Lake) and also visiting palaces and buildings dating back
to the times of both Romania's Royal Family, as well as Ceausescu.
Of course my mother and I also spent a good portion of our time
in the mall watching movies and shopping! Aside from the capital
city, we also visited two towns: Sinia and Bran. In Sinia we
visited two of the Royal Family's summer palaces and a beautiful
old Monastery. But all in all, my trip to Bran was probably
the more exciting of the two.
I came to
Romania knowing for sure that there was one tourist spot in
particular that I wanted to see: the famous Count Dracula's
castle. I had heard before I went to Romania that there was
actually such a person -- a prince, in fact. Vlad Tepes was
the Prince of Wallachia, a district in Romania, in the 15th
century. His permanent castle, now in ruins, was in an area
500 kilometres away from Bucharest, but the castle used for
tourist attraction purposes (one of his temporary residences)
is in Bran, which is two hours away from Bucharest by car. It
was built in the year 1212 as a fortress for the Knights of
the Teutonic Order. Tepes used the castle later on as a headquarters
for his incursions into Transylvania. Nicknamed "The Impaler,"
he kept a very strict totalitarian regime with his people. Legend
has it that he used to bleed people to death when they opposed
him or crossed his path -- thus giving rise to the gory, blood-sucking
image we have of Dracula today.
Driving
through the countryside I couldn't sit still. Being one of those
people who love listening to scary and creepy stories (and not
being able to sleep at night in fear of life) I was expecting
Bran Castle to be completely something out of a story book:
weird architecture, dingy corners, secret passages -- the works.
I was not
disappointed.
As we entered
the area of Bran, a sign saying "Welcome to Dracula's Country"
greeted us. What followed was a deserted road surrounded by
what seemed to be acres and acres of empty land. We drove down
a curvy road leading up to a castle on top of a hill. Beyond
the gates a pair of trees were joined at the base and curved
in a half circle towards each other. A long, sloping walkway
paved with stones led us up to the castle. It was cold and the
wind seemed even colder from the hill where Bran castle stood.
The castle itself was surrounded by what looked to me like dead
grass and depressing-looking trees. Although the furniture inside
the castle was from a later time, when the Royal Family lived
there, the overall ambiance of the castle itself was definitely
what I like to think of as Dracula-style. Not Hollywood Dracula-style,
but a more realistic portrayal. There were secret passageways,
one of which was open to tourists, long steep wooden staircases,
both straight and winding, a courtyard that somehow, even in
the middle of the day, did not seem so sunny and several tower
rooms that were blocked off to tourists. The rooms were all
made of stone and cement, with arched doorways and long wooden
pillars. Small windows letting in very little light were placed
in strange dark corners. Everything seemed a little creepy,
even the furniture, which was mostly made out of wood and had
strange, stiff, uncomfortable looking shapes.
When
the tour had finally ended and I was finding my way back down
the winding, stony walkway I realised how important legends
were to people. In truth the castle was quite ordinary and nothing
compared to the European style rooms in the other palaces and
castles I had visited, with their gold furniture, imported Persian
and Oriental carpets, magnificent paintings and jewel encrusted
weapons on display. However, there is a different kind of charm
in simplicity -- especially when there is a gruesome legend
attached to it. The entire way over to Bran, my mother's driver
was chuckling and saying that it was all tourist attraction
and that this was not even the real castle of "Dracula."
For him, my mother and I were just silly foreign tourists, willing
to believe anything sensational. For me, however, it was exciting
enough just to imagine that it was, in fact, a castle that had
housed the story about a timeless character, who brought terror
into my heart every time the lights turned off. Just to prove
my courage to the monster that had found me in my nightmares,
I had gone to his castle (in the daytime, of course!) and fought
my fears.