I Vant To Drink Your Blood!!

Bran Castle was the destination for today.  S2 was up early and headed down the five flights of stairs (just like home) to pedal the 50 kms up and over the Translvanian Alps.  He was able to do this all before the sleepyheads were out of the room (we were up, just not out).  It was jaw dropping to round that last curve and see that BIG castle. 

O.K....that is taken from the steps of the entrance.

NS loved this overgrown set of stairs behind the locked gate.

The knocker on the door ....

Yes, it was all very cool.  The real story of the castle, however, has little to do with Bram Stoker actually spending any time here.  The character he based Dracula on was known as Vlad the Impaler.  Look him up on Wikipedia if you want to learn gory details ... He sounded like a fierce soldier to me.

The interesting history of the castle was the Romanian royal family who lived here.  The Queen, actually worked as a nurse during World War I.  The family was exiled during the Communist regime.  it's been in this century that the surviving members of the family gave the castle back to Romania.  I got chills of excitement reading the letter from the Prince, thanking the "elves of Bram" and proclaiming it a true fairy tale that they had all taken such good care of the castle sine the family was forced into exile.

the courtyard

The Queen 's bedroom

Our traveling artist

An itty bitty cannon

we continued on to Brasov (and their Hollywood-type sign)

The streets were lively on a Tuesday night

And yes, there is a Bank of Translvania with ATMs that give money, not blood.