Food, Drink & Travel

When Bram Stoker wrote his classic novel, Dracula, he spawned an entire genre of vampire movies, from the pallid horror and busty swoonings of cheesy films like Brides Of Dracula to the angsty teenage smarts of The Lost Boys (‘My own brother, a goddamn, shitsucking vampire. Boy, you wait till mom finds out, buddy’).

For the inveterate traveller, though, the vampire of choice would have to be Polidori’s urbane but undead Lord Ruthven (a thinly-veiled Lord Byron) and the story of his travels across the globe with a mortal companion, Aubrey. From London to Timbuktu the henchman of Satan pouts, broods, complains and sulks, as he simultaneously tries to bring Aubrey over to the Dark Side and blames him for every late train that never arrives. He’s the travel companion from hell.

Polidori’s travelling vampires were a modern invention. The original homegrown vampires came from Transylvania in Romania and other East European countries. They were wan and insipid creatures, easily spooked, afraid of the dark, very family minded – they returned from the grave only to kill fellow family members – and unable to travel further then the ancestral plot.

It wasn’t until the real-life figure of Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Tepes (Dracula), got thrown into the folkloric myth that vampires acquired a few well-toned horror muscles. The Wallachian leader’s impolite penchant for staking his victims and then watching them die horrible and painful deaths obviously made an impression. From there it was only a short step to Stoker’s wall-climbing, befanged, bloodthirsty Nosferatu with his appalling antisocial manners.

Bran castle, 30km (20mi) south of Brasov in Transylvania, is neither Dracula’s nor Vlad’s castle despite the popular myth, the address, the talking tour and the admission price. It is believed that Vlad used the place as a B&B a couple of times but the castle itself is too cheerily turretted and whitewashed-polite to have much appeal as the lair of a beast.

Vlad’s real palace is the more fitting and sombre ruins of Poienari citadel in the Arges valley some 450km (280mi) northwest of Bucharest. Six kilometres (4mi) north of the citadel is the valley of Arefu, which has cornered the market on vampire ambience. If you sit around a campfire long enough, one of the villagers will suddenly remember a great-great-great grandfather who was a contemporary of Vlad Dracula. More spine-chilling than a flashlight under the chin!