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My visit to Dracula's Castle — October 8th, 2006
Tami and I traveled to Romania for our second time to see a number of things we weren't able to the first time, the most important of which (to me) was Castle Poenari — Dracula's castle. Visiting Vlad Tepes' real castle was a lifelong dream of mine, and it was pretty mindblowing to finally see it with my own eyeballs. Getting to the castle was as big an adventure as actually exploring it; it's basically in the middle of nowhere in the Transylvania countryside. Tami and I stayed the night at the nearest big town, Curtea De Arges, about 26 kilometers south of the castle. The next morning, we flagged down a local minibus going north, I said hello to the driver in Romanian ("Buna ziua") so the guy could hear my terrible accent and understand that I don't speak Romanian, and I held up my small pad of paper upon which I'd scribbled the word "POENARI." The driver glanced at it, thought about it for a second, and then gestured "get in," and explained something to us in Romanian, which, of course, we didn't understand, but he seemed like a nice guy and it was clear he wanted to help us out. We paid 2.50 lei each (roughly 50 cents) and climbed in the crowded minibus. I'd noticed the sign in the front window said "Arefu" on it, and I remembered reading that the castle was in the Arefu Valley, so I took that as a sign we were doing the right thing, but it still felt pretty weird to get onto this rickety minibus full of mostly old women in traditional dress, clutching big bags of groceries and clothes and stuff. I have never blended in less in my life. It worked out great though. We rode through 20-some kilometers of beautiful hills and farms and tiny villages, going basically in a straight line the whole time, and then we reached a point where the bus was going to make a left, and the driver pulled over and gestured to us to get out and walk straight down the road, in the direction the bus had been heading before the turn. He looked pretty confident that he was telling us the right thing to do, and we basically had no options and no way to get more information, so we got out. I enjoyed pretending that the bus driver simply wasn't willing to go any closer to Dracula's castle, but the real reason the bus turned away there is because there's no town near the castle, so practically no one goes there. The local Romanians aren't interested in Dracula or his castle (and the majority of them aren't aware of our Western Dracula mythology) so it must have seemed really strange to the old people on the bus that these two tourists wanted to get off where we did. We started walking in the direction the driver had pointed, not having any idea how long we'd have to walk or even if we were doing the right thing. We were headed toward mountains, though, and I'd read that once you entered the valley you'd be able to see the castle at the top of a mountain on the left side of the road; there was no danger of missing it, or so I'd read, and that was a little comforting. Sure enough, we walked a few kilometers and...
Here's the first glimpse of the castle! There's a hydroelectric plant near the base of it, which I'd seen mentioned in a few of the articles I'd read about how to find the castle, so I was happy to see that and know we weren't at, like, the wrong castle (which is more of a possibility than you might think! Eastern Europe is lousy with old, crumbling castles).
Zooming in here. This is neat; the castle was actually mostly destroyed during an earthquake in 1888. The layer of gray stone at the bottom is part of the original castle from the 15th century, and the layer of red brick at the top is the rebuilt part (I have no idea when that was done, but even those "new" bricks are crumbling; are they a century old, or just made with shoddy Communist materials?). You can see the tiny bridge at the left, which you've got to cross to reach the castle.
At the base of the mountain there's actually a sign confirming that this is Castle Poenari, in Romanian, English, and French! Since Romanians mostly just think of Dracula as a historical figure (in fact, a hero of Christianity!), this castle is visited like any other historical leader's home; almost like Monticello or something. There are concrete steps that go all the way up, and I've read conflicting figures on how many there are; anywhere from 1,400-1,800, which is a lot no matter how you slice it, but it's not a hard hike or anything. The only other people we encountered were some Romanians spending a nice afternoon outdoors after church (we presumed, because it was Sunday and they were wearing nice clothes), and one old French guy who was, of course, smoking a cigarette as he climbed up the mountain.
At the top of the steps, there's a newly-constructed office (not shown) with a guard who charges visitors 2 lei — roughly 40 cents US — to continue on to the castle. After you get your ticket, you cross this little bridge and you're there!
This is Dracula's view from the top of his castle! Other than the road down there, I doubt much has changed in 500 years.
Like I mentioned above, a big part of the castle was destroyed in an earthquake in 1888. The gray stones on the left are from the original walls, and the red bricks on the right are part of the reconstruction.
Here's the view down the other side.
They've installed walkways and handrails and stuff so you can enjoy some parts of the castle that are pretty heavily damaged and otherwise not traversible. That archway leads to the only part of the castle you can actually go "inside," as in, for a couple meters there are walls on either side and a roof over your head. But for the most part, you're just wandering around ruins in the open air.
After going through the arch, you can see down into this lower chamber that used to be covered with a roof/floor, as you can see from the remants of the beams.
Another look at the archway and the room beyond. I usually edit pretty heavily and try not to post too many redundant photos, but I wanted to document as much of this place as I could for anyone who's interested; I've been researching this castle online for ages and there's not too much information or pictures available.
And here's me actually in the archway. I sent my best pal Ben a text message from right here simply saying "I AM IN DRACULA'S MOTHERFUCKING CASTLE" and then I realized it was 6:30am in Philadelphia...
A look at the castle wall from the far end.
There's Tami sitting at the highest point of the castle.
It was really windy up there. You can really see from the top why Vlad would've chosen this high peak for his castle.
A little background about the place: Apparently there was already actually an ancient castle on this spot before Vlad arrived, but it was in ruins, and when he wanted his own place built, he thought this would be a good location. He'd enslaved a large number of his political enemies and told them they had two years to build him a castle here. If they succeeded, he'd let them go free, and if they failed, he'd kill them. The actually did it, but it's assumed a lot of them died along the way from the hard work. It's still pretty impressive to see that some parts of their labor are still standing after 500 years and an earthquake. Good job, you guys.
Another interesting note: One thing any traveller going to Romania will inevitably read/hear about is all the stray dogs all over the country, which are described as being a nuisance at best, and rabid and aggressive at worst. My first time in Romania, we did see strays all over the place, but they were very calm and not at all aggressive. They'd hang around and hope you'd feed them, but they never got too close or growled at you or tried to snatch food away from you or anything. We saw them in every town we visited, but it was never a problem, and we got used to them quickly. I've read recently that the Romanian government has taken great strides to eradicate rabies in the country, so a lot of the dogs are innoculated and set free, and like I said, we definitely never saw any dogs showing any signs of being rabid. However, as we walked from the bus to the castle, we were adopted by a pack of wild dogs who wove in and around us and generally stayed very close to us the entire way to the base of the steps that lead up to the castle. It was a little unnerving, since we were walking on a rural road with no other people around anywhere, and I was carrying a bag of food, and these dogs were really filthy and wild-looking, and a little more aggressive, at least with each other; they'd sometimes get in each other's way and growl or snap at one another, at the same time we were trying to untangle ourselves from them and step over/around them. It was a little bit tense the whole way, but fortunately nothing too scary happened. The pack finally scattered near the castle, but one dog decided to stick with us, and it was a little annoying how close and underfoot he was, so we actually decided to throw some rocks in his general direction and yell at him to go away, and he did; it was pretty clear these dogs are very careful around people because they're used to people being mean to them. The same dog would try to catch up with us a few times as we started the climb up the stairs, but we kept encouraging him to leave, and he finally started following some other people farther back down the mountain. So, no problems, but it was a little annoying, and a little scary when the whole pack were there and sniffing after our bag of food.
Grafitti near the top of the castle. I didn't deface any of the walls myself, but I did pry a tiny gray rock out of the ground on the main path leading into the castle, to keep as a souvenir. I realized a few days later as we were flying back to Paris from Bratislava that I was flying on Friday the 13th with a rock from Dracula's castle in my luggage. Not a great idea, but we came out unscathed.
On our way out, this is back near the castle entrance again. That's the tallest still-standing part of the original castle.
Those rocks at the base of this side are actually fake; they're big cement blobs to help keep the castle from sliding off the mountain.
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