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 It's a blood path
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Chris Ray goes in search of Dracula and discovers the gory truth.
TO FIND the house where Dracula was born, you must climb a steep hill along the curve of an ancient cobblestone roadway before passing through the gates of the oldest inhabited citadel in Europe.
There in the shadow of an enormous clock tower is No. 6 Piata Muzeului, the ochre-plastered, three-storey home of the infant Dracula.
Not the vampire Count of Hollywood myth, but the historical Prince Dracula who ruled much of what is now Romania in the 15th century.
The two Draculas are often deliberately confused by entrepreneurial Romanians bent on luring you, the tourist, to this obscure corner of Europe.
As a marketing ploy it is entirely forgiveable, because the city of Sighisoara, where the real Dracula was born in 1431, is a brilliant jewel of medieval architecture.
Designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO, the citadel encloses the core of a wonderfully preserved old Saxon town founded by German merchants and craftsmen who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century.
The citadel's ramparts and nine surviving gate towers encircle an intriguing jumble of homes and shop fronts, archaic but brightly painted in a variety of ochres, greens and blues.
This is a city for walking. A wander through the narrow cobbled alleys, under stone archways and up a stairway tunnelled through rock will bring you to a church decorated with 500-year-old frescoes.
Take a rest on the ramparts and enjoy the view across a river valley onto the Transylvanian plain.
No. 6 Piata Muzeului is now a restaurant where customers are met by a cardboard cut-out vampire and offered the chance to wash down their cabbage rolls and polenta with "vampire wine" - red, of course.
Mixing up the Draculas of history and legend annoys some Romanians. Their Dracula was never a vampire, they point out, though vampires do feature in Romanian folklore. Other locals couldn't care what tourists believe so long as they spend their dollars in one of the poorest countries in Europe.
The historical Dracula is better known to Romanians as Vlad Tepes (pronounced te-pesh) or Vlad the Impaler, a tyrant fond of skewering his enemies on sharpened wooden stakes.
He liked to arrange the stakes in geometric patterns and corpses were often left up, decaying, for months. An invading Turkish army reportedly turned back in horror when it encountered thousands of its impaled countrymen rotting on the banks of the Danube.
Vlad adopted the sobriquet Dracula meaning "son of Dracul". Dracul means dragon - Vlad's father was a knight of the Order of the Dragon.
Vlad is presumed to have been the real-life inspiration for the fictional Count Dracula who sprang from the imaginative pen of Bram Stoker, a 19th century Irish novelist.
Stoker situated his count in Vlad's early stamping ground of Transylvania, a region of central Romania enclosed by the horseshoe-shaped Carpathian Mountains.
Despite Vlad Dracula's deserved reputation for cruelty, Romanians consider him a national hero because he led resistance to Turkish invasion. Romanians became vassals of the Turks but never their subjects, thanks to Vlad's ferocity and skill as a commander.
The traveller who sets out on the trail of Dracula will most likely start in Brasov, another place of stunning medieval architecture on the southern rim of the Transylvanian plateau.
The city is a half-day's drive north of the capital Bucharest, through wooded valleys rising like steps above the Romanian plain.
Sited at the foot of a mountain, Brasov offers easy access to ski slopes and hiking trails through magnificent forests of oak and beech. Stroll around the remains of fortifications built to keep out the Turks and home-grown marauders, including Dracula.
The town's defences did not prevent Dracula impaling thousands of locals on St Bartholomew's Day in 1459. A woodcut of the period shows Dracula feasting among a forest of staked victims outside Brasov while his executioner dismembers other victims. This charming scene is reproduced on a tourist postcard.
You can also pick up a T-shirt depicting Vlad Tepes with fangs extended - another suggestion that the Dracula myth might just become the lifeblood of Romanian tourism.
Not all local legends involve fangs and swirling capes. When the Pied Piper made off with the children of Hamelin in Germany they vanished underground and emerged from a cave just north of Brasov, the tale goes.
This may be a colourful explanation for the presence of blond-haired, German-speaking immigrants who dominated Brasov for centuries.
Transylvania's population remains a mix of Romanians, Germans, Hungarians and Roma (Gypsies).
The road north-west of Brasov to Sighisoara takes you deeper into Transylvania, past mysterious castles perched on mountain peaks, fast-running rivers and picturesque villages buried in the countryside.
Richly painted village houses with distinctive, hipped roofs are built sideways with their ends towards the street. Crop land and pasture separates the villages from woodland on higher ground.
The drift of young people to the cities and abroad has depopulated many villages here as in more sophisticated parts of the world. Wrinkled old women in black seem to make up a large slice of the population. Centuries-old agricultural methods linger on, with sheep and black cattle still grazed communally on unfenced meadows.
As the countryside slips by, crests of the Carpathians constantly in view, it is easy to conclude that Transylvania's greatest tourist attraction is its natural beauty.
Prince Charles certainly thinks so. He is patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust dedicated to preserving the unique character of Saxon village life in Transylvania through sympathetic economic development including reviving traditional crafts.
Much of the trust's work is carried out in remote villages accessible only on foot or horseback. Some homes restored by the trust are being opened up for tourist accommodation.
The Turks had their revenge on Dracula in 1476 when he was slain in combat, possibly by some of his own noblemen. His head was carried as a trophy to the sultan in Constantinople.
The rest of his body is believed to be buried at Snagov Monastery on a wooded island on beautiful Lake Snagov near Bucharest. The Orthodox monks will tell you the coffin lies under the floorboards and, on a hot day, offer you a refreshing drink from the well.
Make it your last stop on the Dracula trail, but try to make it soon. There are plans to build a Dracula theme park nearby.
TRIP NOTES
* Travel in Romania is cheap by Australian standards. Prices are quoted in euros and/or the local currency the leu (plural lei). EUR1 = $1.60 or 4 lei. Credit cards are widely accepted and all towns have ATMs. English is widely spoken. Many websites offer tickets, hotels and tour packages. See the Romanian National Tourist Office website, www.romaniatourism.com.
* No airline offers a Sydney-Bucharest service. Options include Austrian Air via Vienna from $1869 plus taxes or Qantas/British Airways via London from $1982 plus taxes. Australians need a visa before arrival.
* A five-day Romania rail pass costs $US150 ($200) first class with discounts for youth, seniors and groups.
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