Today was the day—Dracula castle! We hit the road running today, but it was worth it. The Bran Castle, while very rarely used by Vlad himself, is probably the best preserved castle in Romania. It was refurbished to cater to Mary I of Romania in the early 1900s, but she found it too somber so she never really stayed there. There were still many artifacts (furniture and such) that remained in fabulous condition though, so it was neat to see so up close. It’s the castle always shown in Dracula stories, so we today are really stuck with it seeming ominous, but at least we aren’t the only ones. The bazaar outside the castle was amazingly cool but we had so little time I rather felt like a bat, flitting around wildly. Ah well…
We got to see another castle, Peles Castle. This was used for the royal family of Romania starting in the late 1800s (up till then Romania was still its three separate regions). They imported a king, Carol I from the Hapsburgs, so the place is very Germanic in overall design, and boy, was this a palace. There’s something about the German style that, like the Orthodox churches, make it elegant, extravagant, and homey all at the same time. It’s a tie for which room was my favorite; it's between the armories (two weapons rooms full of arrangements of everything you could possibly think of to hurt someone) or the library, complete with secret staircase. There was a room completely Turkish in decoration, with rugs adorning every wall and soft ottomans to lounge upon; a golden theatre room (originally live, then converted to motion picture by the king); a Spanish Moorish room, and Venetian room…and yet homey.
After this lots of walking and information, it was time for dinner, which was AMAZING (I know I use that word a lot, but oh my goodness.)At this restaurant they had folk music and dancing performances, and their performances were the icing on the cake of my generalization of “Romanians feeling everything deeply”. The music itself was so lively and heart wrenching all at the same time—I barely got to eat I was so transfixed on the performers. The dancing was also lively but in a different way—while the musicians were hot (quite literally, they were sweating profusely by the end of their last song), while the dancers were…were happy. While everyone was amazing, what really took my breath away was the panflute feature as the finale—he could play just as fast as the violins and so pure and soulful… when he imitated a sparrow I nearly looked up to see how one had got in at this time of year.
The other cool part of the night was the trip to Snagov Island, the final resting place of Vlad Tepes. Turns out a single monk lives on and maintains the island—the current one has lived there for ten years. To think of the life he lives every day, full of toil with no company, especially coming from the monastery in the middle of Bucharest like he did, man that’s tough. Even though he didn’t like the decision, he followed the rules and he went and faithfully upkeeps the island. It was really cool to actually be there and see his grave, the grave of Dracula. The story goes he always wanted to be buried there, so when he was killed alongside the river, set up by the boyars (wealthy landowners who really didn’t like Vlad), the monks found his body, and later his head (it was taken to Istanbul to prove to the Turkish government he was really dead) and buried there. Unfortunately his enemies found out, dug him up, and put him under the entrance to the church, so he would be eternally stepped on. But in the end he still had his supporters and was moved to a secret location until after WWII, when he was moved back to Snagov Island. Being there so late (it was pitch dark) made it even neater.
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