Visit Dracula's Castle in the Carpathian Mountains. This sounds like something out of the movies to most of us, however this themed treat is going to take you right there. I’m sure most of us old enough to remember the old Dracula movies will clearly understand the excitement of this break. Deep inside The Carpathian Mountains, you will be driven in a horse and carriage by night and dropped at one of the most frightening places ever seen in the movies.
Select Holiday Mountain Club - Transylvania Romania
The start of this awesome chiller takes you to the Select Holiday Mountain Club which is located in the village of Bran, amid Romania's Carpathian Mountains. The alpine region offers a variety of activities year-round such as skiing, hiking, and mountain biking. Accommodations are spacious with modern decor. The property is near Transylvania's famed attraction, the centuries-old Bran Castle, a museum that was once home to Vlad Dracul (the legendary Count Dracula). Just a 9-mile (15 kilometers) drive from Brasov, the resort offers easy access to the Stone and Bucegi mountains, Moeciu, and the Rasnov fortress.
Situated at 1030m altitude, Poiana Braşov is a winter sports resort in Romania, being an international tourist attraction. It has 12 ski slopes with varying degrees of difficulty, sports grounds, a lake, discos, bars and a restaurant. The nine more known parts amount to a total length of 14,331 meters and have different degrees of difficulty whether you are skiing for the firast time or you are a world class champion the slopes here can accomodate.
Bran best known as a place of legend, is a historical place, the gate of Transylvania and Wallachia. Although the name Bran is closely linked to that of the castle, the region is full and the other Tourist attractions: Moeciu, Bucegi and Stone Mountains, and also Rasnov Brasov with Saxon fortified cities Prejmer and Harman, Poiana Brasov, the ski slopes.
The Main Event
You now have had time to discover his homeland and maybe hear a few stories in the local bars. But now your invitation as his guest is upon you. Dare you step foot inot his realm or are you going to pass and run. For those brave enough you are in for one sensational experience. As the fog thickens & the sky darkens youo will be taken by horse & Carriage along the long winding dirt track to the home of Dracula.
Dracula known as Vlad Dracul, who was a Walachian Prince with a castle, now in ruins, located in the Principality of Wallachia. Because Bran Castle is the only castle in all of Transylvania that actually fits Bram Stoker’s description of Dracula’s Castle, it is known throughout the world as Dracula’s Castle. Dating from the 14th century, it has has been serving for ages as a military fortress controlling the entry route to Transylvania, and it is nowadays frequently associated with Dracula’s myth.
Dracula – as he is perceived today – is a fictitious character whose name derives from the appellation given to Vlad Tepes, the ruler of Wallachia from 1456-1462 and 1476, and who, for largely political reasons, was depicted by some historians of that time as a blood-thirsty ruthless despot.
Stoker’s character, Count Dracula, first appeared in the novel “Dracula”, published in England in 1897, by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. But the name “Dracula”, far from being a frightening term, derives from the Crusader Order of the Dragon with which Order both Vlad Tepes and his father had been associated. The rest of the Dracula myth derives from the legends and popular beliefs in ghosts and vampires prevalent throughout Transylvania.
Stoker’s Count Dracula is a centuries-old vampire, sorcerer, and Transylvanian nobleman, who claims to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun. He inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains. In his conversations with the character Jonathan Harker, Dracula reveals himself as intensely proud of his boyar culture with a yearning for memories of his past.
Count Dracula appears to have studied the black arts at the Academy of Scholomance in the Carpathian Mountains, near the town of Sibiu (then known as Hermannstadt). While Stoker named his Transylvanian Count “Dracula”, he was careful not to suggest an actual link to the historical character of Vlad Tepes. While Stoker’s character Van Helsing muses as to whether Count Dracula might be the Voivode Dracula, he obviously is not since Count Dracula of Transylvania is plainly not Prince Vlad Tepes of Wallachia and Stoker was disinclined at all to make his character a real person of historic significance.
In the villages near Bran, there is a belief in the existence of evil spirits called ghosts or “steregoi” (a variant of “strigoi”). Until half a century ago, it was believed that there existed certain living people – “strigoi” – who were leading a normal life during the day but at night, during their sleep, their souls left their bodies and haunted the village tormenting people in their sleep. These evil spirits haunt their prey from midnight until the first cockcrow, when their power to harm people faded. “The undead [i.e., ghosts, vampires] suffer from the curse of immortality,” writes Stoker, “they pass from one period to another, multiplying their victims, augmenting the evil in the world…” The Dracula character derives from these local myths.
As for Vlad Tepes, the ruler of Walachia, he does, indeed, has an association with Bran Castle. Vlad was involved in several campaigns to punish the German merchants of Brasov who failed to abide by his commands as regards their trade in his Walachian markets.
Sitting round the large open fireplace before bed with the stories of the Vampire King will leave you quaking at times but re,member it is not real it is a fantasy but one we woud truly reccomend as you will never forget your time as a guest of Dracula.
