I recently ran across this great documentary about the historical Dracula on YouTube. There are a few really cool shots of Castle Poenari in the snow. I was there in October, near Halloween, when it was chilly and a bit cloudy, but I’d love to see the place in wintertime like that. The documentary also tells some of my favorite weird stories about Dracula, like how he used to keep a golden chalice in the…Continue Reading →
I try not to collect things; I try not to own things. Of all of my adventures all over Europe (about twenty countries in the last few years), I’ve only ever kept one souvenir: this small rock that I pried out of the earth within the walls of Cetatea Poenari — the castle built by Vlad Ţepeş, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula — in the Transylvania region of Romania. It’s about an inch and…Continue Reading →
I used the video feature of my digital camera for just about the first time ever while I was at the top of Castle Poenari, to try to document a little bit about the layout and size of the place. The first one is a video showing the entrance into the tower archway, the room below, and the open ceiling above. The second is a look around from the highest point of the castle….Continue Reading →
Visiting Castle Poenari was a dream of mine for a long time, but when it came time to do the research on how to get there, there weren’t many websites with a lot of good information. Here I’ll tell you about how I got to Poenari, as well as a few other options that exist. I visited Castle Poenari on my second trip to Romania, during a long, one-month voyage across a handful of countries;…Continue Reading →
[Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4] This is part 4 of 4. See part 3 here. Graffiti 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 I was flying back to Paris from Bratislava that I was flying on…Continue Reading →
[Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4] This is part 3 of 4. See part 2 here. Here’s me actually in the archway of the tower. I sent my best friend Ben a text message from right here simply saying “I AM IN DRACULA’S FREAKING CASTLE,” and then I realized it was 6am at his place in Philadelphia; oops! A look at the castle wall from the far end. A little background about the place: Apparently there…Continue Reading →
[Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4] This is part 2 of 4. See part 1 here. Like I mentioned above, a big part of the castle was destroyed in an earthquake in 1888. I believe the gray stones on the left are from the original walls, and the red bricks on the right are part of the reconstruction, but I can’t be sure this is correct. Here’s the view down the other side. They’ve installed walkways…Continue Reading →
[Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4] OCTOBER 2006: I traveled to Romania for my second time to see a number of things I wasn’t able to the first time, the most important of which (to me) was Castle Poenari — the real 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 eyes. I’ve included a lot of information about getting…Continue Reading →
