“Dracula’s Castle,” Bran Castle, Romania
Bram Stoker’s blood-sucking terror has scared audiences since the 1897 publication of his gothic tale, Dracula. Bran Castle presents as “Dracula’s Castle.” There is, however, no evidence Stoker visited Bran. He may have seen pictures, and heard stories of strigoi, ghosts who rise in the night and drink their victims blood. Sources at Bran Castle claim a description of Bran Castle inspired Stoker’s Castle Dracula rather than him having seen it in-person.
As Bran Castle’s web site states, Stoker’s Castle Dracula “is strikingly similar to Bran Castle and no other in all of Romania.” Nor is the original Dracula, Vlad Tepes, connected to the castle. He impaled, burned, nailed, and creatively murdered his way into power in the Wallachia region. For all his infamous dealings, he never ruled Bran Castle. Tepes was, according to historians, held prisoner there for two months in 1462, but it was never his regular residence.
