"I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome . . . "

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things."

Transylvania and the search for vampires in Romania led to no long awaited fulfillment of dreams but to some interesting discoveries nonetheless.
From Paris we took a night train to Munich and then continued on to spend an afternoon in Vienna Austria. After a few hours exploring the downtown and the ‘Fan zone’ set up for the UEFA EURO 2008 championship it was another night train to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Sunday morning we awoke on the train and had another half day to go through the country before we made it there.

Bucharest, only recently escaped from communist rule is a city showing signs of a rough passing. The ancient architecture is mixed with the high-rises and tenements of the 60s concrete convenient building style. The parliament building is the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and the road leading up to it was constructed to be another Champs D’Elysees – it’s obviously failed. The opposite end of this road is a little times square of traffic and billboards although everything else seems to be missing to give it any energy. And just behind those billboards and the endless arrays of parked cars (anywhere and everywhere is a parking space in Bucharest) is the Old City. Ripped up for materials and political statement it is in complete disarray. The dirt roads have piles of cobblestones sporadically around the planks laid down as make shift sidewalks. Bars lay out additional planks in the dirt to create patio space since the roads are not usable. Only the first floor of the majority of the buildings is still usable – the upper floors hollowed out or missing. No remaining surface is clean of graffiti and yet it has more charm than the remainder of the city.

The region north of the capital, crossing the mountains is known as Transylvania. Dracula – once known as Prince Vlad or Vlad the Impaler – was born in the city of Sighasora. I took the train up to Sinaia on a day trip from Bucharest where there was meant to be an old castle. But, alas, I got lost and hiked up the mountain alongside a narrow highway. Still it was interesting to see the people living there and the variety of houses and architecture out in these more peasant towns.
Tuesday – my birthday, although no one knew it (or remembered) – we left Bucharest for the university town of Brasov. From here we took a bus out to Bran. This area of Transylvania felt like being in the center, dry hot areas of Honduras – similar people, vendors and public transportation as well as scenery. In bran we easily found the castle and discovered it to be that of Queen Maria of Romania who was a Baha’i. (I was traveling at this point with a Baha’i from Australia and a Scottish girl from the hostel). The castle was far from the intimidating medieval castles of vampires and gothic stories but a real fairytale home complete with the flapper fashions of the queen and her daughter. So in conclusion – I still want to be a vampire, I also want to wear vintage clothing and live in a little white castle in the mountains and eat Romanian pastries (tiny bite size little pastries, each a surprise in variety of flavours – from apricot or chocolate to potato, or sesame)


No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.