My imagination raced ahead conjuring images of swirling, screeching black bats. A slight breeze whistled through the pine needles while a pack- no, more like a gang- of mangy dogs trotted incessantly behind us, their nails clicking tick tick tick on the empty steps. The scene was straight out of Bram Stokers’ Dracula: Jonathon Harker, the young solicitor sent to stay with the Count, surrounded by howling wolves as he approaches the vampire’s lair.

Well, almost. Not exactly howling wolves, but the dogs did seem dangerous in a rabid kind of way.

Confusing myth with reality is easy to do in Transylvania. The legend of Dracula (meaning ‘the Devil’) entices tourists to drink from a potent cocktail of folklore, history, landscape and literature. Everybody knows of Count Dracula, the blood sucking neck biter. But only Romania can boast the man behind the myth.

Vlad Draculea, a fifteenth century Romanian prince, is said to have been the inspiration for Bram Stokers’ shape shifting character. He impaled victims - Turkish prisoners of war, disobedient subjects and treacherous lords - on sharpened stakes.  Thus he was named Vlad Tepes - Vlad ‘the Impaler’.

‘Dracula tourism’ is prolific in Romania. Any building, town or toilet remotely connected to either the fictional Count or the historical Vlad is exploited.

We, however, were determined to experience the ‘real’ Dracula, a search that would take us through student clubs, rural villages and gothic architecture to the heights of the Carpathian Mountains.

We caught an overnight train from Prague to Cluj Napoca. Coincidentally, this was Jonathon Harker’s first stop on his journey to the Count’s castle. Our train was late so we alighted on the platform near the stroke of midnight. Much to our disappointment we didn’t stumble across black caped creatures emerging from crypts. We did, however, encounter night dwellers of another kind – students.

Cluj Napoca (known simply as ‘Cluj’) is the hub of Romania’s burgeoning intelligentsia. During the school year, students make up a third of the city’s population. And, like any place in the world where students gather en masse, partying takes precedence over studying.

The Fashion Club, Diesel and the Basement Bar are just some of the clubs in which Paris Hilton look-alikes groove to the latest European dance anthems. Young men wearing designer labels sip Black Russians with the air of arrogance which often clings to the rich like cologne. Models pass out free packets of Vogue cigarettes while ‘Fashion TV’ plays on a big screen behind the bar.

This came as a surprise to us. Romania is one of the poorest nations in Europe, recovering from a long and brutal dictatorship. However, the country has recently joined the EU and seems to have finally broken the shackles of Ceausescu. A few long nights in Cluj proved young Romanians are quickly moving away from their nations troubled past and can party with the best of them.

The nights blurred together and we became distracted from our quest to find the real Dracula by a slightly scarier quest to find the real Paris Hilton among the look-a-likes. It was about then that we decided to re-focus, re-hydrate and hit the road. We caught the train to Sighisoara, Vlad Tepes birthplace.

On the train we met Anna, a music student returning home for the holidays. She gave us the lowdown on a changing, progressive Romania. “You used to be able to smoke on trains,” she said, tapping her knee to the rhythm of the tracks. Anyone who has traveled through Eastern Europe will understand the gravity of this comment. The country was in a flux: no smoking in cramped, public places; Russian was out, English was in; people can now vote.

We questioned Anna about opulent Cluj: “Higher education is only available to those whose parents can afford to send them to university,” she explained, “or those lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship.” Herself a scholarship student, Anna revealed that 40% of Romanians live agriculturally, many in abject poverty.
.
The train lumbered past a Stephen King landscape of yellow haystacks, never ending cornfields and ragged scarecrows flapping in the breeze. The horizon occasionally provided a silhouette of post-communist perniciousness: disused factories, abandoned collective farms and silent power stations. Our alcohol enhanced impression of Romania as party central quickly dissolved like an aspirin.

We said goodbye to Anna as she hugged her parents on the train platform in Sighisoara. Her comments were correct: horse drawn carts cantered down the dirty street and grubby children raced each other on rusty bicycles; a marked contrast to affluent Cluj.  

However, Sighisoara is experiencing an economic boom of its own. In the centre of the town rises a 13th century citadel, listed as a UNESCO world heritage sight. Tourists stroll through the maze of sloping cobblestone streets, marvel at the fortified walls and sip coffee in the town square, once the site of public proclamations and gruesome executions.

A clock tower built in 1648 still keeps time and a climb to the top provides spectacular views over one of the best preserved medieval towns in Eastern Europe. Interestingly, people still live inside the citadel; one of the old battle towers is occupied by a local radio station.

The central attraction is Vlad Tepes’ childhood home. Situated in the town centre, it has recently been converted into a (surprise, surprise) Dracula themed restaurant. The mass of associated merchandise, including vampire t-shirts, Vlad Tepes’ stubby holders and oddly, Star Wars memorabilia, evoked a sense of nostalgic kitsch. Sighisoara, although architecturally incredible, just didn’t rate high enough on our Draclometer. We were after the scent of blood.

Perhaps blood would stain the streets of Brasov, the second largest city in Romania. Flanked by steeply rising, forested hills, and overlooked by a Hollywood style ‘Brasov’ sign, travelers are attracted to its mediaeval ambience and proximity to ski resorts in the Bucegi Mountains.

On St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1459, Vlad Tepes executed 30 000 dishonest merchants and nobles in the town square. He arranged the stakes in concentric circles and sat in the middle of the grisly scene, lasciviously eating his dinner. 

We didn’t find remnants of Vlad’s mass impalement, but were astounded by the spectacular gothic architecture of the Black Church. Its towering steeple, daunting in the night sky, provided an eerie atmosphere to a dark night in Transylvania. The ‘Brasov’ sign, lit up on the hillside, gave the impression of a film set. Once again, our search for Dracula distorted fact and fiction.

The two sides of the Romanian coin continued to beguile us in Bran, a small town 30 minutes bus ride from ‘Brasovwood’. Our guide book told us it was here one could explore ‘Dracula’s Castle’.

I clung to my sharpened stake, expecting the rank smell of open crypts and garlic to permeate the walls; instead, a musty, odour hung in the air like an old noose. Further consultation with my guidebook revealed that the Dracula reference is due to the castle’s classic appearance: it is unlikely Vlad Tepes ever visited here.

However, the spirit of Vlad was to be found in a nearby haunted house where shrieking ghouls and the moaning undead frightened those brave enough to venture in. A market stall sold fake blood and plastic vampire teeth and a bar, complete with coffin shaped lounges, sold slightly overpriced drinks. Further exploration revealed a cheaper local alternative down a flight of stairs under an internet café.

 More a museum than horror show, an exploration of the many rooms in Bran Castle revealed an elaborate collection of antique furniture. A recreated traditional Transylvanian village was nestled in a field below. The red roofed castle fronted an evening sky of setting sun and coloured clouds, a memorable visual experience.

We decided to bite the silver bullet and journey onwards to Poenari, site of Vlad Tepes’ actual domain. Built by slaves and servants in 1456, it is, as Jonathon Harker correctly described, “in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.” While not completely inaccessible, the castle is difficult to reach, and as such, sees few tourists.

Three bus rides from Bran took us into Romania’s rural heartland. Through the city of Pitesti, the town of Court de Arges and a truckstop called Poenari. Cows roamed the streets and the sound of hens clucking was intermittently interrupted by the growl of passing road trains.

After an anticipatory nights sleep, a we walked three kilometres to the base of the mountain where we had to search for the first step that would take us to ‘the Devil’s’ lair. 

Eventually we emerged from the gloom of the forest into bright sunshine. Vlad Tepes’ castle perched precariously on the side of a cliff. Crumbling ramparts and aging battle towers loomed ominously overhead.

There were no swirling bats, yet Bram Stoker’s evocation described the scene well: “The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree-tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”

Our long search had finally alchemized fact and fiction. Overwhelmed by the view, we stood silently on the ramparts of the real Dracula castle looking out over the precipice into the rugged Carpathians. The air that swirled beneath our feet was scented by fir trees and we were dizzy from the height, or was it the spirit of Vlad circling us?

We had also seen the spirit of a poor, post-communist nation emerging into the wider world with a garish sense of humour and the inventiveness to take what it has and run with it. It all merged on top of that mountain to produce a moment of sheer exhilaration. We had drunk from the potent cocktail and were now His minions.

It turns out that Vlad Tepes’ first wife threw herself from these ramparts into the Arges River far below, so not to be captured by invading Turks. Our impaling anti-hero escaped, only to be killed later in battle. His body was decapitated, his head sent to Constantinople. However, his legend lives on in castles, villages, and tacky t-shirts all through Romania. RIP.

Fast Facts:

• It is possible to travel to Transylvania by train from almost any major city in Europe. Connections, however, in Hungary and elsewhere can be unreliable, so patience is required.
• Train travel within Romania is reliable and frequent. There are slow trains, which are old, dilapidated, and as the name suggests, very slow; and fast trains, which are modern and more expensive. Ticket prices for the fast train average between 20 – 40 dollars between destinations. Buses are regular and very cheap.
• Expect to pay between 20 and 40 dollars per night for double accommodation. Hotels are available in most major towns; pensions and home stays in smaller towns and villages.
• Australian citizens require a visa, $65 NOT  available at the border, but from Romanian consulate in Canberra.