The highlights:
Sighisoara is a hilltop fortress, which is the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, sometimes called the "real" Dracula being renowned for activities such as driving stakes through people! The house in which he was born is a restaurant today. With a Saxon clock tower and Gothic churches and a huge hilltop cemetery, my visit seemed dominated by music as I attended 2 classical music concerts and many young people were carrying around and playing violins.
Brasov's old town centre is full of 800 year old buildings including the Black Church. But the reason most people stay is to visit the nearby Bran Castle - Dracula's castle. Attractive from the distance on its hilltop, inside there are no evident Dracula links as you get pushed along in the crush of people following the one-way tourist route throught he castle.
More interesting is the ruins of Rasnov Fortress, which is also nearby. A stunning location on the mountain top, one can easily see why only once were its defences broken.
Not actually part of Transylvania, but also visited as a day trip from Brasov was Sinaia, home to the stunning Peles Castle. Let you imagine run riot when the word castle is mentioned, the image produced is probably something likes Peles. So much ornamentation, gold, carved wood, venetian glass, marble with statues and frescoes outside. Incredible.
1 comment:
Ooh, nice to see all the photos again! I've had to go back over your earlier posts and have another look.
I know when we studied haematology, we were taught that the dracula legends also (rightly or wrongly) hark back to the disease porphyria, which among other symptons can cause photosensitivity. I always thought that was interesting.
Aidan's learning violin now -- and had a lesson the other day with Keira's singing teacher who is originally from Romania but came here via South Africa where she ran an opera company. She's a fantastic teacher, but alas the "good" people at Immigration have denied her a visa, and she has to leave the country in under five weeks now. We're all devastated. Anyway, she had one listen to Aidan's violin and told him he should throw it in the bin! lol
PS Did I tell you I've put all the family stuff on a separate blog? If you follow my name back from this post, you'll see it and can bookmark it, because it's probably of more interest to you than the Spec Fic one.
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