Romania - Eastern Europe - page 516

exhausting 1,480-step climb up to the castle; be sure to buy something to drink at the
little stall, since you'll be climbing for about half an hour. # epe @ built the castle as a
defensive fortress against intruders from Transylvania; to save costs and punish his
mortal enemies, the Turks, he had Turkish prisoners of war do all the work, subject-
ing them to hideous conditions as they toiled endlessly, often dying in the process.
Clearly the enterprise was cursed, and a large chunk of the castle dropped off the cliff
back in 1888; the same fate that befell Vlad's wife 400 years earlier when she allegedly
jumped to her death, Lady Macbeth-style, during the Turkish siege.
Cetatea Poienari. Admission L6 ($2.15/£1.15). Daily 9am-5pm.
5 Transylvania
For horror fans, the name sits in the throat and is urged out with an unholy drawl,
but—aside from the sheer Gothic drama of medieval towns and hilltop citadels—
there's very little to evoke Transylvania's ominous association. Yes, Vlad # epe @ was
born in the fortress city of Sighi @ oara, and wolves do roam the Carpathians (in fact,
they're considered a protective force in Romanian culture), but Transylvania's reality is
more one of fairy-tale forests surrounding charming Saxon towns and fortified church
steeples poking through the treetops.
A possession of the Hungarian king from the 10th century, Transylvania has been
the source of a power struggle for 1,000 years. Hungary only gave up its territorial
claims in 1996. Legend tells how the lost children of Hamelin emerged from a cave
here; of course, that's a fanciful account of the arrival of Transylvania's Aryan German-
speaking population, the Saxons. Settlers from the Lower Rhine, Flanders, and the
Moselle region, these blue-eyed blondes were lured here in the 12th century by the
Hungarian monarchy who promised them land and other liberties in return for pro-
tection against the Ottoman and Tartar threat. The Saxons established seven fortified
cities, the Siebenbürgen, with outlying villages centered on fortified churches, serving
as both spiritual and military protection. Today the major settlements of Bra @ ov,
Sighisoara, and Sibiu remain popular destinations, but there are dozens more Saxon
villages throughout Transylvania that are remarkably untouched by modern life. The
Saxon community has dwindled over the centuries, but Transylvania still includes a
sizeable Hungarian minority tracing its ancestry to the Széklers, a clan of warriors
accorded noble privileges for defending Hungary's eastern frontier.
Separating Transylvania from Wallachia in the south and Moldavia to the east are
the Carpathian Mountains, where Anthony Minghella filmed Cold Mountain, a movie
shot through with images of a sublime, beautiful wilderness. While you won't encounter
any wolves, were or otherwise, you will—as many trekkers discover—come across the
odd shepherd or remote mountain village where smiles and frowns are your only tools
of communication.
Near Bra @ ov is Bran Castle, touted by the ill-informed as “Dracula's Castle.” With
a gorgeous medieval Saxon center Bra @ ov is also home to the ominously pretty Black
Church, the biggest Gothic cathedral between Istanbul and Vienna. And if you are
pining to rub shoulders with a real count, Transylvania may have the answer: Count
Tudor Kalnoky offers some of the best lodgings in the country in the Hungarian farm-
ing community of Miclo @ oara.