Looking like it’s been carved from the cliffs it’s planted on, Bran Castle in Transylvania is the very picture of ‘spooky.’ Although much history has passed through and around this medieval fortress, one infamous historical figure—once intimately linked to the castle—is now thought to have never set foot in it. ‘Dracula’s Castle,’ as the Romanian tourist board began calling Bran Castle in the 1970s, wasn’t the home of Vlad the Impaler, the brutal 15th-century ruler of Wallachia. And Bram Stoker, author of the novel that Vlad inspired, didn’t base his Dracula’s Castle on this castle. (One of Vlad’s actual lairs was Poenari Castle, a mountaintop ruin about two hours west.)
While it turns out Bran Castle has little to do with the bloodsucking Count, it most certainly looks the part from the outside based on the movie version.
Based on my own family, on my mother’s side, the people of Romania in days gone by very superstitious. Hexes and threatened hexes or curses were part of the family that came to America. Sadly I have no powers. But then again perhaps people do sense there is something strange about me and few will be my friend.
The film was actually shot at Shea’s Castle, near Lancaster, California and does not look like the castle in the movie.
Coast Contact 