There Are No Vampires in Castle Bran

On this cool and cloudy morning the Bran Castle was opened just for our tour as it is normally closed on Mondays.  The castle was originally a wooden fortification high up on the hill in early 14th Century but late in 1388 it was rebuilt of stone and designed to protect the village Bran from invaders such as the Huns or Germans.

Following WWI, Transylvania united with Romania and the castle was given to Queen Marie, wife of the second king of Romania.  She had it modernized in 1920 and redecorated to become the second summer home for the royal family.  Following WWII the communist regime took possession and removed most of the original furnishings so when it was finally returned to the royals in 2006 they had to find period furniture from their own collections.

During the Victorian era when Bram Stoker wrote his novel about vampires, he used information found in libraries in Ireland for the name of Dracula and a description of the castle. Stoker has never visited Romania and none of the Dracula movies were ever filmed in Transylvania.

We toured 3 stories and saw bedrooms, dining room, sitting room an armory and a hidden stairwell.  Balconies opened onto an inner courtyard.  There were lots of steps with very narrow hallways and low ceilings.

We also learned that a very real “vampire” lived in Hungary in the 1600’s.  Elizabeth Bathary was a serial killer for over 20 years.  She and her female servants would kill virgins and bathe in their blood believing it kept them young. The servants were burned at the stake but Elizabeth had connections and was imprisoned in her country estate. It’s believed that Stoker used her as a model for his vampires.