Encountering the Count: Transylvania, Romania – Travel Review

By Kevin Pilley, October 2025

Our coffin was booked for one, but we were late, having been caught in a bottleneck of bullock-drawn hay carts in the Carpathian Mountains. We took a right towards ‘the lands of the forest’ and soon saw, towering above the Borgo (Tihuța) Pass, the four-star Castle Dracula Hotel in Piatra Fântânele.

There was no welcoming fork of lightning – Visa cards were visibly welcome. A sign above the door read, ‘Come freely and leave some of the happiness you bring.’ No discounts were offered for virgins, and mad coachmen were conspicuous by their absence. The receptionist didn’t have over-large canines. Or look like Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Unai Emery.

Traditional Transylvanian countryside
image: CMJ – Calin Stan

“Interest in the occult”

Transylvania does exist, although it was not part of Romania when Bram Stoker’s famous vampire novel was first published in 1897. The book was only widely published in Romania in 1993, four years after the Revolution and the end of 42 years of communist rule. Bram Stoker, an Irishman with an interest in the occult, never visited Eastern Europe – the closest he got was Switzerland and his library. The landscapes in the book are similar to Zermatt, where he holidayed. The castle described in the novel is thought to be based on one in Scotland.

The book, originally entitled ‘The Undead’ and then ‘Count Vampyr’, begins and ends in Transylvania; the rest of the action happens in London and Yorkshire. The story was originally set in Styria, suggested to Stoker by a Hungarian scholar. The Count’s physical appearance is often suggested as a composite of the poet Walt Whitman, the composer Franz Liszt and the actor Henry Irving, for whom Stoker worked as a secretary. Jonathan Harker, the solicitor who travels to Transylvania on a timeshare deal, derived his name from a scenery designer working at London’s Lyceum Theatre. Whitby Abbey was probably a visual influence on the castle. Stoker took the name of some of the Count’s victims from gravestones there. You can stay at the town’s Dracula Rooms.

Dracula wine and the Count himself

“Coffin-shaped”

‘Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways and there shall be to you many strange things,’ said my official Dracula guide, Nicolae, from one end of the hotel’s coffin-shaped restaurant table. Mysterious Journeys, the official travel agency of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, offers ‘Count’ holidays into the ‘Ineffable Zone’, as well as courses in ghoulish folklore.

Nicolae leaned over. ‘May I offer you one of my best Full Moons?’ he said, pouring a glass of Riesling endorsed by the Count and carrying his diabolical appellation. ‘May I also suggest you start with Pork à la Dracula – perhaps with a little traditional peasant maize mush? Basically, polenta. With garlic predominant.’

Transylvania – which, along with Moldavia and Wallachia, makes up modern Romania – is an eight-hour drive north-east of Bucharest. In places it touches the Ukraine border and the Cluj-Napoca hub is only 90 miles from it. ‘Dracula’ package tours take in the capital, which boasts, in its 6,000-room parliament, the third-largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon and Thailand’s Sappaya-Sapasathan. You also visit the Royal Palace and Cotroceni Palace, the former presidential residence. President Ceaușescu’s former hunting lodge, where he stayed during bear-hunting trips, is now a hotel and en route to Transylvania.

Also on the itinerary is the major tractor-manufacturing city of Brașov, famous for its Gothic Black Church, citadel and Saxon architecture. The citadel is the venue for a very corny chivalry contest, a cheesy medieval banquet and a not-particularly-medieval cabaret consisting of a dessert-time rendition of ‘’O Sole Mio’ by a bad singer with an ambiguous hairline.

Vlad’s birthplace, Sighișoara

“Europe’s finest”

The fourteenth-century, cliff-top Bran Castle – which has nothing to do with the myth – is on the itinerary mainly because it looks like it should. Poenari Castle was actually inhabited by Vlad Țepeș, nicknamed ‘the Impaler’, the scourge of the Turks, who is possibly buried in Snagov. He was a 15th-century lord, born in 1431 in Sighișoara on the River Târnava Mare in the region of Bistrița-Năsăud. It is one of Europe’s finest preserved medieval walled fortress towns. There are nine towers (including the Cobblers’ Tower, Furriers’ Tower and Blacksmiths’) remaining from the original 14, built by local guilds against Turkish raids.

The ochre-coloured house on Str. Cositorarilor, between the Clock Tower and Citadel Square, was where Vlad was born (1431) and grew up. It is now a restaurant, with a weapons museum upstairs. A wrought-iron dragon hangs above the entrance.

Vlad didn’t have fangs, and his connection with Dracula is notoriously nebulous. Vlad was awarded the Order of the Dragon (‘Dracul’ – dragon or devil); ‘Dracula’ means ‘son of the dragon’.

Bran Castle

“Journeys through fact and fiction”

In Bistrița, you visit the tourist-built Golden Krone restaurant and eat, as Harker did, ‘robbers’ steak’ – a goulash described rather appetisingly in the novel as ‘cooked in the simple manner of London’s cat-meat’. You can sample The Legend of Dracula Fetească Albă (dry), Castellum Dracula Pinot Noir, Dominion Dracula Cabernet Sauvignon and other vintages.

Stoker created an industry that has spawned over 750 films and even a medical breakthrough. ‘Draculin’ is a substance extracted from the saliva of Brazilian bats.

‘Can I give you a Half Moon now?’ asked my guide, pouring me a glass of Merlot – the Count’s favourite red wine. ‘Dracula is a British invention,’ continued Nicolae. ‘Thanks to the Hammer horror films, he has become the most famous Romanian. Dracula introduces a lot of people to Europe’s least-known country. They discover the real Romania. Tours of Transylvania are journeys through fact and fiction, historical reality and literary myth. Count Dracula is Romania’s best ambassador. We are not a nation of bloodsuckers, but it is sensible commercial practice to exploit the Dracula myth. It would be batty not to.’

Hotel Castel Dracula

“Irrational fears”

The £60-per-night Castle Dracula Hotel opened in 1983. A new luxury castle is planned nearby, on the banks of Lake Colibița in the Bârgău Mountains. Guests will be able to sleep in coffins in an en-suite dungeon. Bathrooms will have mirrors with no reflections. Crucifixes and holy water will be available around the clock from night porters with sickly pallors. Local carpentry skills guarantee creaky doors.

‘Our tours are 80 per cent superstition and 20 per cent history. The Dracula myth can be broken down into fifty separate superstitions. You must remember that the rational mind is not very old. Transylvania is a remote rural area of irrational fears and ancient folk beliefs.

‘As the Count advised Mr Harker, we tell our guests not to sleep unwisely and not to visit any private cemeteries. We don’t do any stake stuff. In the book Dracula is actually killed by a knife.

Dracula Castle at night

“Icon of evil”

‘Dracula is part of the collective imagination. He has the appeal of a rock star. He is outside the law – someone who subverts authority. But a case can be made for him being a force for good and a guardian of life. He punishes disorder and attacks only those who change their faith or disobey. It is ironic that a British brainchild should have made part of Romania so well known. Some of my people worry that our real culture has been forgotten at the expense of commerce. Not true. A vampire is introducing people to Romania – to real Romanians like the playwright Eugène Ionesco and the composer George Enescu.’

The plum brandy arrived. The waiter wore black and his eyes were dark and sunken. He was obviously overworked. Or just undead. I asked Nicolae if the icon of all evil and monster archetype would be joining us. My erudite friend and careful driver smiled. Merlot trickled from his incisors. He shook his head, his laugh echoing through the castle. ‘Goodness me, no. But he might join us later in the Skyroom Bar. The Count likes a sundowner.’

More info:
ryanair.com
mysterious-journeys.com
rezervari@casteldracula.ro

Kevin Pilley

Kevin Pilley is a former professional cricketer and  the ex-chief staff writer of PUNCH magazine. His humour, travel, lifestyle and food & drink work appears worldwide. He has been published by over 600 titles.

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