One Castle, No Vampire: $135 Million

Be warned. You may find Transylvania's Bran Castle a $5 disappointment. Although the castle's rocky perch is spectacular, my garden shed is far more spooky.

Unlike here, unknown creatures rustle about the shed's cobwebby corners. The occasional bat flits overhead at twilight. And it definitely isn't overwhelmed by hordes of coach tour gawpers fiddling with digital cameras.

Thanks to its preposterous "Dracula's Castle" billing, Bran is one of Romania's biggest tourism money-spinners. Swept along on what seems a conveyor belt of sweaty bodies, I'm sorely tempted to stick my own fangs into the jugular of the idiot I'm stuck behind. Armed with Bram Stoker's vampire classic, now causing a log-jam on the turret stairs, he wants photos of his girlfriend waving a silver cross.

Whiffs of garlic are commonplace, but don't get excited. That's down to after-lunch exhalations, not guides doling out garlic necklets. With over 450,000 annual visitors piling through the castle, the experience is more claustrophobic than spine-tingling. Particularly so in the turret.

If you're traveling with kids intent on uncovering vampires in stone coffins, expect some real moans and groans after the whirlwind tour. In its guise of a genteel summer residence for Romania's Hapsburg royals, they'll find Bran as creepy as their granny's parlor.

Although its foundations date from 1377, the castle has been much restored. White plaster walls, dinky russet turrets, room after room of less-than-fascinating furniture. (This is not Versailles.) Beds, bowls, and candlesticks. In short, the usual ho-hum 19th-century stuff found in Europe's minor league stately homes.

Even though Bran has nothing to do with Stoker's Count Dracula, most travelers feel almost obliged to see it. But spurn expensive tours. From Brasov, frequent buses go to Bran village. The journey takes 45 minutes and costs less than $1.50.

Stoker named his fictional Transylvanian count after a 15th-century tyrant called Vlad Tepes--who also had the nickname Dracula. However, the name has no vampire connection. It means "Son of Dracul" and derives from the Romanian word for dragon.

Better known to westerners as Vlad the Impaler, the real Dracula didn't bother with all that teeth-into-neck nonsense. No, his preferred method of execution was ramming sharpened sticks up his victims' rectums. Turks and local miscreants were fair game, but 40 merchants from Brasov also found their rears impaled on the end of pointy poles.

Even Vlad's connection with this castle is tenuous. He may--or may not--have spent a couple of nights here. This hasn't deterred the myth-makers, of course. Nor indeed the gypsies flogging piles of shudderingly-awful kitsch on the castle's approach road. Most Romanians hate it, but the pedler s realize Dracula (the fake one) is the country's over-riding brand image among foreigners.

Steenie Harvey
Roving Europe Editor, International Living

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P.S. After the communist regime seized Bran Castle in 1948, it became a museum. In 2006, Romania's government returned it to a family descendant, Dominic von Hapsburg. In a recent press release from his U.S. associates, this New York architect now styles himself as an Archduke. Earlier this year, the newly-resurrected lordling decided to cash in his heritage. The price remains undisclosed, (apparently full details will only be given to the right kind of buyer), but the UK media are now bandying a figure of $135 million. Rumor says Brasov municipality couldn't afford the original $80 million asking price.

If you're the right kind of person--with the right type of money--the sale is now in the hands of Baytree Capital.