Dracula

HERE BE DRAGONS.
 
…From deep within the massive, slab sided flanks of Dracula’s brooding mountaintop fortress echoes a piercing, agonised scream that sends wildlife scurrying for cover and brings the hairs on the nape of the neck of every mortal within earshot springing smartly to attention…
 
Sorry to shatter the pastoral peace, everyone. But one thousand three hundred and seventy nine heart-stopping steps up a sheer, Transylvanian granite needle is, all things considered, not the best place to suddenly discover that you’ve left the paltry price of admission to the cloud enshrouded castle once occupied by the Count himself nestling snugly in the glove box of a Lexus IS200, still tauntingly within vertiginous view, Dinky toy far below.
 
Now, due to the absence of anything more than a nodding acquaintance with the plethora of European passenger lift manufacturers in business today, this part of the world is not, I should stress at the outset, for the faint hearted. But if, like me, you spent your childhood leaping to safety behind the sofa at the merest glimpse of a sharpened incisor and still tend to check under the bed before piling aboard on nights when the weather is at its worst, then it is to Romania’s Transylvanian Alps you must go to untangle fact from fiction in the myths and legends surrounding Count Dracula; the most famous vampire of them all.
 
Vampirism has always been an integral part of the folk-lore of South-eastern Europe; the seventh born child being particularly susceptible to the tell-tale signs of marks on the head or a rudimentary tail. Indeed, even in England up until 1824 a wooden stake was commonly driven through the heart of suicide victims to prevent the subsequent onset of nocturnal hunger pangs abetted by outsized teeth. But it took a number of well publicised incidents during the eighteenth century to spread something of a vampire craze further westward.
 
And it was the resultant selection of learned essays and lurid fantasies that inspired Anglo-Irish civil servant Bram Stoker to write his classic Gothic horror story Dracula in 1897. The novel was, in fact, originally set in Austria and called The Undead . But critics chastised Stoker for its similarity to other, previously penned works, so he promptly changed titles and geographical settings. Though Dracula’s fictional fortress was actually inspired by Cruden Bay castle in Aberdeenshire, Stoker set the novel in Transylvania after his research had unearthed the all too real figure of Vlad Dracula. Otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler he was, it transpires, perhaps an even more cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant than the mythical Count himself…
 
Cartographers of old used to mark uncharted areas of the maps they produced with the words ‘Here be Dragons’; a slogan which, even today, could aptly be applied to the beautifully preserved medieval town of Sighisoara in the heart of the Romanian province of Transylvania (Latin for ‘beyond the forest’). For here, in 1431, an unnamed woman gave birth to a son called Vlad Dracula. The translation, ‘Son of the Dragon’, refers to his father Vlad Dracul, who was made a knight of the Order of the Dragon by the Holy Roman Emperor for his prowess in fighting the Turks. Perhaps, then, it’s this connection with dragons that imbued the vampires of future folklore with such fearsome fangs.
 
So Sighisoara, perhaps the prettiest town in Romania, makes an ideal starting point for our vampire hunt, where pleading ignorance of the Romanian for ‘No Unauthorised Vehicles’ will allow you drive up into the old citadel via a gate in the west walls. Besides which, I’d like to keep an eye on the Lexus; car theft isn’t exactly unheard of in Romania these days, and a car like the IS200 attracts the sort of attention more usually associated with turning up to the state opening of parliament dressed as a Dalek.
 
Over the centuries, a bewildering selection of armies have tramped through this region and Transylvania has changed ownership more often than the average £10 note. As a result, the perfectly preserved citadel walls housing the old town -first settled by the Romans- contain a veritable smorgasbord of architectural styles and narrow cobbled streets flanked by houses clearly constructed before the invention of the plumb line. And the yellow ochre walls of one such a two storey house as this, Piata Muzeului 6 hunched, sloping shouldered in the shadow of the old clock tower, bear a plaque confirming Vlad Dracula’s childhood residency until 1435.
 
Next year, through the traditional expedient of awaiting just the right moment to bump off a rival, his father secured the princely throne of Wallachia -the adjoining province- and moved his family south across the Tansylvanian Alps to the court at Targoviste, capital of the province for more than two centuries…
 
With the distant Alps still lavishly iced with a layer of deep snow even in mid-April, the Vlad family’s progress south through the mountains must have been painfully slow. And so, unfortunately, is ours. The standard of Romanian roads vacillates wildly between poor and, frankly, appalling; matched only by the state of most of the cars you’ll come across slugging it out with potholes big enough to pass muster as a serviceable dragon’s lair. Puncture repair occupies a significant proportion of every Romanian driver’s day, and it’s a credit to the suppleness of the IS200’s suspension that -even riding on low profile tyres the likes of which the astonished Romanians have never seen before- the jack stays in the back throughout.
 
One minute the road surface is respectably smooth and the next, without warning, you’ll find yourself crashing through foot deep potholes packed colander close from verge to verge. It is, therefore, advisable to allow at least three times longer for each journey you plan than you might for comparable distances in most areas of Western Europe. Proceedings are further enlivened by the fact that Romania remains largely a country of rural, agrarian smallholdings living mostly, it seems, on the roads themselves. Dusk is a particularly invigorating time at which to drive: At this hour most locals take their cow for a tarmac based constitutional and, unnervingly, very few beasts of burden boast tail lights.
 
Travelling Southeast from Sighisoara, the pass through the Alps is marked by the town of Brasov. Unlovely, would be the kindest way to describe it. But it’s typical of many Romanian towns who’s size swelled dramatically when the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu bulldozed all the neighbouring rural communities flat and moved the population into grim ranks of apartment buildings that still line the approaches to the town today. However, we’ve chosen this route
because it takes in Bran castle which commands the entrance to the pass of the same name, formerly the main route into Wallachia.
 
Though Bran castle -spectacularly perched on a rocky buff and looking every inch the ideal vampires retreat- stakes a claim as Dracula’s home, Vlad never lived here, although he is rumoured to have attacked the castle at one time. No surprises there, though; he must have attacked pretty much everything in sight at least once in his busy, brutal life. Whilst Ceausescu was in his most nationalistic phase, he sang Vlad’s praises as a Romanian hero repelling countless invading hordes and he milked the Dracula legend for all the tourist dollars he could lay his hands on. At Bran, tourist fleecing reached a climax when staff hid in chests and sprang out suddenly to shock visitors. So successful was this ploy that one unfortunate American tourist dropped stone dead of a heart attack. Mercifully, no such surprises await you today, though, creaking under the weight of history, this is still one of the most elegant and best preserved buildings in Romania.
 
By contrast, of the Princely Court at Tragoviste little remains except the 9 meter thick walls of the old keep on which the Sunset Tower has subsequently been built; so called because it was from here that guards announced the closing of the city gates at dusk. Here the good life ended once and for all for Vlad when, in 1444, his father, spectacularly failing to live up to his title as scourge of the Ottoman empire, struggled to appease the territory hungry Turkish Sultan by sending his two sons to live with him as hostages. His brother Radu survived the silken garrotte which the Turks favoured to strangle dignitaries by sleeping his way into the Sultan’s favour, while Vlad Dracula kept a low profile, studying the Turks use of terror to keep order; a lesson he was to put to good effect in later life…
 
In 1447, Dracula’s father was murdered by the noble families and merchants of Tragoviste and his eldest son Mircea buried alive. Astonishingly, aged just 17, Dracula then briefly seized the throne with Turkish support before fleeing in the face of yet another Hungarian onslaught. Allegiances at the time seemed to change with the frequency most folk change their socks today, and it’s a miracle that Dracula survived to finally take the throne in 1456 and, through unspeakable cruelty, use terror to stay on top for the next 6 years.
 
The populace gleaned their first taste of what they were in for when Dracula finally had his revenge against those who’d plotted the death of his father: Inviting them all to a feast on Easter Sunday, Vlad promptly had them impaled on stakes around the town; only the fittest were spared to work on his retreat, high in the Transylvanian Alps at Poienari. Our next destination…
 
With very few exceptions, the Lexus will out-perform pretty much everything else on Romanian roads. Hardly surprising though considering that, with the exception of an endless stream of hay ricks resembling giant, glam-rock hair do’s on the move, everything else is invariably a Dacia; Romania’s re-badged Renault 12. This is the standard transport of delight here; astonishing in respect of both how badly it is driven and the state of its disrepair. The good news is that Dacias travel so slowly they may be overtaken pretty much as and when necessary. The bad news is that there are so many of them it feels as if one’s progress is even slower than in reality: No sooner have you overtaken a small shoal of Dacias -tacking like errant sailing boats across the
road in front of you to avoid disappearing altogether into the more spectacular pothole- than you’ll find yourself awash with deja vue at the sight of an identical convoy ahead.
 
Climbing slowly north into the heart of the Alps, Romanian roads reveal yet another sting in the tail; signposting. Perhaps Ceausescu employed it as a cunning ruse to prevent the population moving freely within Romania but, for whatever reason, roads anywhere except the very centres of the largest towns are completely devoid of signposts. As asking the way tends to prove somewhat fruitless, we resort to darting up a selection of roads on offer at each junction until convinced that it no longer feels as if we’re on course, and retracing our steps.
 
Happily, this somewhat haphazard approach to navigation eventually bears fruit and we find ourselves at the foot of an unmarked staircase which climbs out of sight into the thickly wooded slopes beneath Dracula’s stronghold at Poienari. Now, it’s said that there are exactly 1480 steps up to the ruins of this eyrie, but I made it 1,563,489; must be something to do with losing count when my heart rate finally overtook the step frequency after just a few minutes climbing.
 
With calves like blancmanges and knees quivering like harp strings, we finally make it to the top, delighted to discover that there’s no one here at this time of year to collect the admission fee we’ve left in the valley far, far below. Gasping like goldfish that have accidentally leapt free of our bowl, we find it hard to believe that anyone would have the energy to so much as place one brick atop another after such a climb, let alone build an entire fortress.
 
But, typically, Vlad worked his captive labour force literally to death. Quite why a man who instilled so much fear wherever he went should feel the need for such a bolt hole is beyond me. Dracula’s method of law enforcement was simple, brutal and terrifying, and practically every crime -even simply offending him- was punishable by impaling: Victims were bound spread-eagle, and a stake hammered through them from stem to sternum, where upon they were raised aloft and left to die writhing in agony. Curiously, critics of Romanian food, amongst which I number myself, might be so unkind as to suggest that these days merely eating a steak invokes an all too similar response…
 
This summary execution was meted out to all and sundry across Dracula’s domain. Whereas, the disabled, unemployed and work-shy were invited to a vast feast at Targoviste and asked by Dracula if they’d like to be free of life’s sufferings. Whereupon he simply locked them all into the banquet hall and set fire to it.
 
But perhaps Vlad’s most brutal effort was reserved for a greeting of the invading army of Sultan Mehmet II in 1462. En route to the capital, Dracula had prepared a forest of stakes 3 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide on which he impaled no less than 20,000 Turkish and Bulgarian prisoners. Understandably, this had the desired, demoralising effect on the Sultan’s army, which promptly fled.
 
There isn’t, in truth, a great deal to see at Poienari. The citadel is surprisingly small; one third having collapsed into the gorge in 1888, following the somewhat abrupt route downhill first taken by Dracula’s wife in 1462: Unaware of the success of Vlad’s shock tactics against the invading Turks, she took her own life rather than be captured. But the views north into the heart of the Transylvanian Alps are breathtaking in every sense of the word, and well worth the climb for those whose constitutions can stand it.
 
Returning to somewhat firma terra we pass through Arefu, a small village overlooked by the castle, which is reputedly inhabited by folk directly descended from those who served Dracula. We stop by for a couple of words. Sadly, I don’t understand either of them. So we head south once more to visit Dracula’s final resting place -it is to be hoped; an island monastery in the centre of lake Snagov near Bucharest.
 
Further flailing around the unsignposted countryside eventually unearths a bloodsucker of an entirely non-mythical bent, who agrees to take us out to the island monastery on a huge, vibrating hulk disguised as a giant sherbet lemon for the absurd fee of $100 US. To put that into context all you need to know is that $25 is enough to accredit you with millionaire status in the local currency, the lei.
 
The monastery is an elegantly detailed brick building ruled over by an abbot who refuses to come out of his cottage under any circumstances, and his helper, who will scream blue murder if you try and take her picture. Dracula’s grave is remarkably unspectacular for one who led such a colourful life -even if the colour in question was primarily burgundy; a simple rectangle of marble bricks frames a bare patch of floor in front of the altar.
 
The exact details of Vlad Dracula’s demise remain unclear. But having once again retreated into exile in 1462, he re-emerged in 1475 to live for a year in Sibiu where the locals found it strangely prudent to offer him hospitality. He even regained his throne briefly in 1476 but, when his brother Radu offered the population an alternative to ‘rule by the stake’ they, unsurprisingly, seized on it. Dracula was murdered and his head disappeared -reputedly sent to the Sultan as a present- the fact that he was buried thus adding further detail to subsequent guidelines on dealing satisfactorily with the undead…
 
Weaving back towards Bucharest airport through city traffic that I’d feel more comfortable tackling in helmet and racing overalls with a number painted large on the side of the IS200, it’s time to take stock and separate myth from reality: Certainly, the vampire existed in European folk-lore for centuries before Bram Stoker put a name to the legend. Undoubtedly, though, he could not have picked a worthier subject to play the part of the infamous count, and elements of the true Dracula’s lifestyle and rather gruesome hobbies have clearly crossed the boundary between fact and fiction.
 
However, given the choice between two pin-prick holes in the neck and accompanying immortality versus an excruciating demise disguised as a giant shish-kebab, I, for one, would have no trouble whatsoever in coming to a decision.