Transylvania is the land of the Dracula myth, where vampires are said to emerge from fog-enshrouded citadels set high in bleak mountains above pastoral villages.
And to a point, it's all true.
There are few places as raw or as charming as this anywhere in Europe. The brooding landscape is dotted with forbidding castles, monasteries and churches perched in a wild, mountainous terrain that swoops dramatically across northwestern Romania.
Dracula could have come from no other place.
In a Romanian-made Dacia car, a non-loaded version of a French Renault, a friend and I bounce along two-lane roads, kicking up dust as we leave the sprawling capital of Bucharest behind. We pass men inching along on horse-drawn wagons and black-frocked women standing in the shadows beneath vines cut to form arches running from gate to stoop of low-slung houses. Dogs emerge from nowhere to chase our wheels. Roadside merchants, beckoning us to stop as we cruise slowly by, sell hand-woven baskets and handmade woolen sweaters.
Looming above us are the peaks of the southern Carpathian Mountains, a gorgeous vista featuring steep gorges, thick forest, deep caves, lush meadows and cold blue streams where bears, wolves, lynx and wild boar still find sanctuary.
The beauty is both heightened and scarred by the remnants of communism -- the cinder-block apartment buildings and broken factories that ring even the most exquisite medieval towns. But excise the careening traffic, litter and urban grit, and this becomes one of the most timeless places on the planet.
For centuries, Transylvania was a frontier territory where the Ottoman Turks and the West met and fought. And today, the legacy of its dueling, polyglot populations of Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons and Gypsies are evident in the area's festivals and customs, and in the castles and fortified churches that stud the landscape.
Transylvania, like all of Romania, is for the semi-adventurous. The people are extraordinarily welcoming, but the tourist industry is underdeveloped, and once you're out of Bucharest, hotels, guest houses and restaurants are basic -- sometimes bland, sometimes surprising, but always affordable. I've stayed in lovely $20 guest houses and feasted on homemade bread, cheese, raspberries and honey washed down with mouth-burning local brandies.
Accept the place as you find it, then, and Transylvania -- Latin for "land beyond the forest" -- offers an unforgettable trip through myth, history and the painful transition from communism to capitalism. There is much too much to see on one visit, so I recently concentrated on a triangle formed by the cities of Brasov and Sighisoara and the Fagaras Mountains, a circuit of about 400 kilometers on narrow, winding roads.
Historically, these were largely Saxon lands, so-called after German colonists who first moved here in the 12th century at the invitation of a Hungarian king. For centuries, they built architecturally stout communities that echoed the styles of their homeland. They continued to speak German and worshiped in Lutheran churches that were built to withstand invaders.
Now, however, there is a terrible sadness to the Saxon world. In the past 30 years, these communities have dwindled to almost nothing because of repatriation back to Germany. What remains is the imprint of centuries of colonization, architectural treasures devoid of their people.
In Brasov, Romania's second-largest city, the medieval ramparts that protected the old town of Teutonic homes are still standing. As we wander around the large downtown pedestrian area, crowded with shops and cafes, I feel as if I am in an old German city.
The heart of Brasov is the Piata Sfatului (Council Square), and it was here, according to legend, that the Pied Piper resurfaced with the children he had mesmerized in Hamelin, Germany. A 15th-century Council House in the middle of the square is now a museum that tells the story of the Saxon guilds that controlled the city and kept the Romanians in a neighborhood just to the southwest. To enter the central citadel, Romanians had to pay a toll.
The city's premier structure is the Black Church, just off the Piata Sfatului, and it is reputedly the largest gothic church between Istanbul and Vienna. Stained by fire, hence its name, the Lutheran church is unusually decorated with Islamic prayer rugs from Turkey. It also boasts an organ with 4,000 pipes that was built in Berlin in the 19th century.
We push on to Bran Castle, about 30 kilometers southwest of Brasov. Perched on a wooded bluff, the restored 14th-century castle has been re-branded as "Dracula's Castle," although it has only a very tentative connection with Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula novel and who lived in the castle for a short time during the 16th century.
With its soaring turrets and secret passageways, Bran Castle is a visual feast, and if the local tourist industry needs the myth of Dracula to attract visitors, well, who cares? Dracula, in fact, has become a major selling tool for the Romanian tourist industry as it attempts to capitalize on its best-known, fictional citizen. Much of the Dracula industry in Romania is pure kitsch, but, for me at least, it is a minor distraction in a beautiful, neglected country that needs every dollar it can get.
After Bran, our next destination is the city of Sighisoara. The "jewel of Transylvania," it is an almost perfectly preserved 13th-century medieval citadel of narrow cobbled streets surrounded by thick defensive walls and towers. A covered wooden staircase, the Scholars' Stairs, rises to the fortress-like Church on the Hill with its rich frescoes.
From the top of the clock tower in the old town, one can look down on the red-tiled roofs above the sloping streets and imagine that nothing has changed in the 500 years since Saxon craftsmen and merchants wandered its lanes and witch trials and public executions were held on the Piata Cetati.
One of the real pleasures of traveling in Translyvania are the Saxon villages that lie along or just off the main roads. About 200 of these villages have old fortified churches originally designed to ward off invaders. And the most famous of these churches is in Biertan, just a short distance off the main road, west of Sighisoara.
Built in the late 13th century, the church sits on a hill surrounded by walls that are more than 10 meters high. Inside the church is an altar with 28 panels and a sacristy door with 19 locks. A local man tells us that one of the rooms in the church was for couples who wished to divorce and were locked up together for two weeks. (Whether that would encourage or discourage separation is left unclear.) Turn to anyone in Transylvania and they are happy to talk about their country's history, the telling leavened with an invitation to have a drink and spiced with some nationalist fervor.
Time is running out, and my friend and I must head back to Bucharest -- but this time we drive through the Fagaras Mountains, first by way of Sibiu, yet another impressive Saxon town. Fagaras is a typically crude piece of communist town planning dominated by a chemical factory. But the surrounding mountains with dozens of glacial lakes are spectacular and a favorite for toughened hikers.
On the Trans-Fagarasan Highway, we repeatedly stop to take in the view. My Romanian companion tells me that some of these slopes were once the exclusive preserve of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who came to nearby Balea Lac to hunt black goat.
Times have changed. Ceausescu is dead, executed in the 1989 revolution. And now, if you come to Romania, you can stay in his old hunting lodge.
The big cities in Romania offer a wide selection of hotels, and outside of Bucharest most places are priced from as low as $20 per night.
In Brasov, I stayed at the Hotel Capitol (19 Blvd. Eroilor or 19 Blvd. Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej), one of the city's upscale hotels, where a single room costs $60 per night and a double costs about $80.
Dracula's Castle is an easy commute from Brasov, but there are also guest houses in the village of Bran. In Sighisoara, I stayed at the Hotel Rex (18 Dumbravei St.) for $25 per night -- or $40 for a double -- which offers basic accommodations with private bath and breakfast.
In Bucharest, the international chains are represented, and most rooms there are priced at $200-plus per night. Locally managed hotels in the capital include the Hotel Bucuresti (63-81 Calea Victoriei St.), where I stayed, which costs $180 per night for a single, $196 for a double.
There is also a national network of guest houses, some of which cater to agrotourism, for those who want a completely rural experience. The Romanian National Tourist Board (www.romaniatourism.com) can provide details. And, if you ever get really stuck, just stop and ask anyone if they know of somewhere you can stay, and invariably you'll be offered a bed for the night. I've done it for $10 a night.
Ask your hotel to recommend a restaurant serving traditional fare -- it's generally better to get out of the hotels. The Romanian menu is meat-centric, with heavy goulashes and multiple pork dishes, often in thick sauces. Local dishes include cabbage or vine leaves stuffed with rice and meat, called sarmale, or polenta served with sour cream. The country's wines are good, particularly the reds. Vintners are bottling some merlots as Vampire wine.
Aeroflot (Tel. 753-5555. www.aeroflot.ru) operates daily direct flights from Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 to Bucharest.
It may also be helpful to know that all of the major car rental companies are represented in Romania. A mid-size car costs between $450 and $500 for a week, with local companies such as Euro Service Amerom tending to be a little cheaper.
Driving in Romania, however, can be a little hairy. If you want the freedom of your own transportation, one alternative is to contact a local travel agency and hire a car and driver who can chauffeur for a fixed rate. If he drives too fast, as he will, just tell him to slow down. Alternatively, the country has a somewhat decrepit network of trains and buses for those willing to rough it. For vacation packages, the tour operator will provide all transportation on coaches.
And to a point, it's all true.
There are few places as raw or as charming as this anywhere in Europe. The brooding landscape is dotted with forbidding castles, monasteries and churches perched in a wild, mountainous terrain that swoops dramatically across northwestern Romania.
Dracula could have come from no other place.
In a Romanian-made Dacia car, a non-loaded version of a French Renault, a friend and I bounce along two-lane roads, kicking up dust as we leave the sprawling capital of Bucharest behind. We pass men inching along on horse-drawn wagons and black-frocked women standing in the shadows beneath vines cut to form arches running from gate to stoop of low-slung houses. Dogs emerge from nowhere to chase our wheels. Roadside merchants, beckoning us to stop as we cruise slowly by, sell hand-woven baskets and handmade woolen sweaters.
Looming above us are the peaks of the southern Carpathian Mountains, a gorgeous vista featuring steep gorges, thick forest, deep caves, lush meadows and cold blue streams where bears, wolves, lynx and wild boar still find sanctuary.
The beauty is both heightened and scarred by the remnants of communism -- the cinder-block apartment buildings and broken factories that ring even the most exquisite medieval towns. But excise the careening traffic, litter and urban grit, and this becomes one of the most timeless places on the planet.
For centuries, Transylvania was a frontier territory where the Ottoman Turks and the West met and fought. And today, the legacy of its dueling, polyglot populations of Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons and Gypsies are evident in the area's festivals and customs, and in the castles and fortified churches that stud the landscape.
Transylvania, like all of Romania, is for the semi-adventurous. The people are extraordinarily welcoming, but the tourist industry is underdeveloped, and once you're out of Bucharest, hotels, guest houses and restaurants are basic -- sometimes bland, sometimes surprising, but always affordable. I've stayed in lovely $20 guest houses and feasted on homemade bread, cheese, raspberries and honey washed down with mouth-burning local brandies.
Accept the place as you find it, then, and Transylvania -- Latin for "land beyond the forest" -- offers an unforgettable trip through myth, history and the painful transition from communism to capitalism. There is much too much to see on one visit, so I recently concentrated on a triangle formed by the cities of Brasov and Sighisoara and the Fagaras Mountains, a circuit of about 400 kilometers on narrow, winding roads.
Historically, these were largely Saxon lands, so-called after German colonists who first moved here in the 12th century at the invitation of a Hungarian king. For centuries, they built architecturally stout communities that echoed the styles of their homeland. They continued to speak German and worshiped in Lutheran churches that were built to withstand invaders.
Now, however, there is a terrible sadness to the Saxon world. In the past 30 years, these communities have dwindled to almost nothing because of repatriation back to Germany. What remains is the imprint of centuries of colonization, architectural treasures devoid of their people.
In Brasov, Romania's second-largest city, the medieval ramparts that protected the old town of Teutonic homes are still standing. As we wander around the large downtown pedestrian area, crowded with shops and cafes, I feel as if I am in an old German city.
The heart of Brasov is the Piata Sfatului (Council Square), and it was here, according to legend, that the Pied Piper resurfaced with the children he had mesmerized in Hamelin, Germany. A 15th-century Council House in the middle of the square is now a museum that tells the story of the Saxon guilds that controlled the city and kept the Romanians in a neighborhood just to the southwest. To enter the central citadel, Romanians had to pay a toll.
The city's premier structure is the Black Church, just off the Piata Sfatului, and it is reputedly the largest gothic church between Istanbul and Vienna. Stained by fire, hence its name, the Lutheran church is unusually decorated with Islamic prayer rugs from Turkey. It also boasts an organ with 4,000 pipes that was built in Berlin in the 19th century.
We push on to Bran Castle, about 30 kilometers southwest of Brasov. Perched on a wooded bluff, the restored 14th-century castle has been re-branded as "Dracula's Castle," although it has only a very tentative connection with Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula novel and who lived in the castle for a short time during the 16th century.
With its soaring turrets and secret passageways, Bran Castle is a visual feast, and if the local tourist industry needs the myth of Dracula to attract visitors, well, who cares? Dracula, in fact, has become a major selling tool for the Romanian tourist industry as it attempts to capitalize on its best-known, fictional citizen. Much of the Dracula industry in Romania is pure kitsch, but, for me at least, it is a minor distraction in a beautiful, neglected country that needs every dollar it can get.
After Bran, our next destination is the city of Sighisoara. The "jewel of Transylvania," it is an almost perfectly preserved 13th-century medieval citadel of narrow cobbled streets surrounded by thick defensive walls and towers. A covered wooden staircase, the Scholars' Stairs, rises to the fortress-like Church on the Hill with its rich frescoes.
From the top of the clock tower in the old town, one can look down on the red-tiled roofs above the sloping streets and imagine that nothing has changed in the 500 years since Saxon craftsmen and merchants wandered its lanes and witch trials and public executions were held on the Piata Cetati.
One of the real pleasures of traveling in Translyvania are the Saxon villages that lie along or just off the main roads. About 200 of these villages have old fortified churches originally designed to ward off invaders. And the most famous of these churches is in Biertan, just a short distance off the main road, west of Sighisoara.
Built in the late 13th century, the church sits on a hill surrounded by walls that are more than 10 meters high. Inside the church is an altar with 28 panels and a sacristy door with 19 locks. A local man tells us that one of the rooms in the church was for couples who wished to divorce and were locked up together for two weeks. (Whether that would encourage or discourage separation is left unclear.) Turn to anyone in Transylvania and they are happy to talk about their country's history, the telling leavened with an invitation to have a drink and spiced with some nationalist fervor.
Time is running out, and my friend and I must head back to Bucharest -- but this time we drive through the Fagaras Mountains, first by way of Sibiu, yet another impressive Saxon town. Fagaras is a typically crude piece of communist town planning dominated by a chemical factory. But the surrounding mountains with dozens of glacial lakes are spectacular and a favorite for toughened hikers.
On the Trans-Fagarasan Highway, we repeatedly stop to take in the view. My Romanian companion tells me that some of these slopes were once the exclusive preserve of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who came to nearby Balea Lac to hunt black goat.
Times have changed. Ceausescu is dead, executed in the 1989 revolution. And now, if you come to Romania, you can stay in his old hunting lodge.
travelers' tips
where to stay
The big cities in Romania offer a wide selection of hotels, and outside of Bucharest most places are priced from as low as $20 per night.
In Brasov, I stayed at the Hotel Capitol (19 Blvd. Eroilor or 19 Blvd. Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej), one of the city's upscale hotels, where a single room costs $60 per night and a double costs about $80.
Dracula's Castle is an easy commute from Brasov, but there are also guest houses in the village of Bran. In Sighisoara, I stayed at the Hotel Rex (18 Dumbravei St.) for $25 per night -- or $40 for a double -- which offers basic accommodations with private bath and breakfast.
In Bucharest, the international chains are represented, and most rooms there are priced at $200-plus per night. Locally managed hotels in the capital include the Hotel Bucuresti (63-81 Calea Victoriei St.), where I stayed, which costs $180 per night for a single, $196 for a double.
There is also a national network of guest houses, some of which cater to agrotourism, for those who want a completely rural experience. The Romanian National Tourist Board (www.romaniatourism.com) can provide details. And, if you ever get really stuck, just stop and ask anyone if they know of somewhere you can stay, and invariably you'll be offered a bed for the night. I've done it for $10 a night.
where to eat
Ask your hotel to recommend a restaurant serving traditional fare -- it's generally better to get out of the hotels. The Romanian menu is meat-centric, with heavy goulashes and multiple pork dishes, often in thick sauces. Local dishes include cabbage or vine leaves stuffed with rice and meat, called sarmale, or polenta served with sour cream. The country's wines are good, particularly the reds. Vintners are bottling some merlots as Vampire wine.
how to get there
Aeroflot (Tel. 753-5555. www.aeroflot.ru) operates daily direct flights from Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 to Bucharest.
It may also be helpful to know that all of the major car rental companies are represented in Romania. A mid-size car costs between $450 and $500 for a week, with local companies such as Euro Service Amerom tending to be a little cheaper.
Driving in Romania, however, can be a little hairy. If you want the freedom of your own transportation, one alternative is to contact a local travel agency and hire a car and driver who can chauffeur for a fixed rate. If he drives too fast, as he will, just tell him to slow down. Alternatively, the country has a somewhat decrepit network of trains and buses for those willing to rough it. For vacation packages, the tour operator will provide all transportation on coaches.
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