76-Second Travel Show: "Halloween in Transylvania"

Episode #004

F E A T U R I N G * 3 5 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Transylvania is best known for a possibly bi-curious fanged creature who was concocted by a Irishman, Bram Stoker, who never visited the country. Some who visit have Dracula in mind, but it starts to dissipate around the time one sees the hokey Dracula souvenir stands outside Bran's "Dracula Castle" -- s0-called because the real-life, quite-moustached Vlad Tepes (after whom Dracula was based) may have come by for an overnighter and a steak sandwich. Or not.

The book took places in the valley northeast of Bistrita, far north. The campy (in a bad way) "Dracula Castle Hotel" built by enterprising communists in the '70s is far from the medieval flavor you'd expect. And the $1 trip to "Dracula's tomb" one-time so startled a Canadian tourist, he suffered a heart attack when a costumed Drac burst out of his coffin. It's not really worth the drive.

But TRANSYLVANIA is wonderful, weird and gorgeous, possibly the most bizarre and interesting part of Europe I've seen. With countless Saxon villages with churches and homestays to the south and the ethnic Hungarian heart of Szekely Land, including great destinations of Cluj Napoca and Targu Mures.

You can hike, ski, castle-hop you're way across the huge area between Bucharest and Hungary, but best -- if you don't mind the drivers -- is renting a car and hitting backroads, where you are the alien to most locals, who whip off mountains, over the road, and up another hill via horse cart.

Cars? Roads? Who needs them in Transylvania?

Three things I tell my friends to do in Transylvania:

1. Spend a couple nights at Mioritica, a homestay in Sibiel village west of Sibiu. It's run by a local teacher, who shares the drinks, invites clarinetists over and puts the beer in the chilly brook running by the few rooms. Email coldeasv [at] yahoo [dot] com.
   
2. Rent a car a couple days. Roads can be awful, but back roads to random Saxon villages, with churches and homestays, opens up the region's past.
3. It's fine to go to Bran Castle (the over-billed Dracula castle), but spooky castle at Hunedoara (an otherwise gray, communist town most miss) looks more the part.

This episode's footage includes a Roma (gypsy) horse fair outside Odorhieu Secuiesc, the Praid Salt Mine (I think -- maybe its the one in Turda?), the mountains of Apuseni Mountains west of Cluj, and a certain scientist from the Pharmacy Museum in Cluj. Some of it may seem a bit grim. That's on me and this Halloween theme. Transylvania is worth it.