The road to Bran (25 km from Braşov away) passes the mountains to Valahia, being an old merchants’ road, which unites the two provinces sinces the Middle Ages.
The landscape is very nice, as the Bran Pass builds the border between two mountainous groups of the Transilvanian Alps, the Bucegi mountains and the King’s Stone mountains. On clear days, the view over the nearby meadows and the gigantic riffs and up to the hights of the Carpathians is spectacular. Thanks to these meadows are the inhabitans of Bran, who normally sheep and beef grow, became so rich, even during the totalitarian regime.
In Bran, there is also a village museum, which brought together typical peasants’ houses from the area. The castle has been built by the inhabitants of Braşov during the 14th century, in order to control the Bran Pass. Nowadays it houses an art collection – which includes furiture, armours, ceramics, and such – and all can be visited now. The most interesting, however, is to visit the castle itself, which has been modified several times over the past centuries. Mid-15th century, was the castle owned by the Vallchian Prince Vlad Ţepeş (the Empaler), better known as Dracula. The Prince was generally correct to his subjects, but cruel as well. No wonder so many tales are told about him. Wrongdoers – murderers and thieves – were executed: a pale was pushed through their body, and if it did not touch a vital organ, they died after several days of breathing insufficiency. The tales of his cruelties reached Western Europe through Transilvania and Hungary. Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” interconnected these tales and became in short time a best-seller.
The Castle of Bran is a real Dracula-Castle; dark and frightening, it has a little, almost round inner court, narrow ailes, cold rooms where it is draft, and mysterious stairgangs. When one visits it alone or in small groups, it frightens one; one may think, it spooks. A castle, where the ghost of the legendary Dracula should now still wander, equals to the Schottish castles. Older people say, Dracula would not have died. He should be buried in the monastery he built near Bucharest, the Snagov monastery, though studies should have proved, the grave is empty. It could be, therefore, that it spooks in the Bran castle.
Even though, in the 1930s, the castle has been used as the summer residence of Queen Mary. The courageous Queen is the last person who brought changes to the castle. In an old well, she constructed a lift, which brought people from the botom of the rock up to the Inner Court of the castle. The dark character of the castle was not diminished, and this fact can be checked.
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