From one bloodthirsty dictator to another? Ever wondered what Bran Castle is like, supposed home of the Transylvanian ruler to beat them all, and even Nicolai C, Count Dracula?
Also known charmingly as Vlad The Impaler? (Don’t ask, as what that means as a way of despatching your enemies is pretty gruesome).
The bulk of it is of course made up, and Vlad didn’t actually have much to do with Bran, a truly imposing edifice with its foundations going back to 1377 on the very northern edge of the southern Carparthians and in the first half of the 20th century an important residence for Romania’s royal family.
But in true journalistic style, Bram (not Bran, though close) Stoker didn’t let facts get in the way of her brilliant 1897 novel, and if even Vlad was actually in many ways (so the excellent new exhibition in the Castle rooms explains) at least no worse than his contemporaries, he has done wonders for Romanian tourism.
Rather more perhaps than Ceausescu, and held by Romanians in warmer and more grateful memory.
We drove up here from Bucharest over the spectacular Carpathian range, reminding how intense the 100-mile contrast is: once-Ottoman Balkans and the Middle East to the South, and once-Austro-Hungarian Central Europe to the north.
Brasov (and here a link to a World Service radio feature I did about the town in January 1990, just days after the revolution) used to call itself- pace Carlsberg beer – Probably The Best City In The World, and that’s not far short of true.
Gorgeous and unspoilt old architecture, what so much of Germany was like before getting trashed in WW2.
And reminding me how it was on the streets of this very Brasov 35 years ago that I first heard of Machu Picchu in Peru, from a passer-by who told me, bubbling with enthusiasm, that this was where he now wanted to go with his new post-revolutionary freedom.
Little could I have guessed that in the ensuing 23 years, after divorce, remarriage, complete change of career from journalism to psychotherapy and renewed divorce, Jutta would in September 2013 say yes to our rather more successful second go on the top of, yes, that very Machu Picchu.
So in many many ways (some that I won’t tell here) Brasov is a very special place…
(Final note: also a link here to a half-hour Radio 4 documentary from 1991 on What Happened To The Revolution).
