An Encounter with the Count
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2006
1
7
14
Trip End
Sep 11, 2006
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Tihuta Pass, Carpathian Mountains,
Romania
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
An Encounter with the Count
Midnight Dracula Time
Dear Readers:
For the first time during this tour we get moving at 9:00am instead of later, beginning our day with a brisk hike up the stairs of the clock tower in the citadel of Sighisoara. It is now a museum displaying interesting artifacts, such as pottery and the old locks to the tower. Most interesting are the displays of medical instruments from earlier times. They look more like instruments of torture than anything else. Then, as today, people undoubtedly had a healthy dislike of visiting the doctor!
Our driver had a late evening last night, and is having trouble getting started
01 Morning in Sighisoara
. We tease him about his nocturnal activities while loading the luggage, and eventually get on the road by 10:00am.We continue driving north toward the heart of Dracula country. Our first stop is a visit to the salt mine at Praid, where we take special busses crammed with tourists and miners 120 meters below ground to a base where we breathe the salt air that many people claim is effective for the treatment of bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses. The caverns are immense, and filled with a playground for adults and children. There is even a chapel constructed in one of the vaults where services are held every Sunday.
The Hungarian stronghold of Targu Mures is where we eat lunch at a really great restaurant with local food that is served very quickly. We spend an hour touring the town's most notable building, the Culture Palace. It really is a place dedicated to all the fine arts, with a hall featuring stained glass windows, a gallery showcasing beautiful paintings, and a concert hall. A symphony orchestra is preparing to rehearse just as we enter the hall to see it, and we are asked to leave when the rehearsal begins. That is fine with us, as we still have another three hours to drive today and it is already 4:30pm.
02 Hi Ho, Hi Ho . . .
While the roads are still good we while away the time playing "Gay Libs." It is a game where we fill in the blanks in a story with nouns, adjectives and expletives taken from the group at random. Then you read the finished story and have a hearty laugh (if all goes well). We get through two of them before realizing they just aren't all that funny, so we refocus our attention on the wonderful scenery.
We make a brief stop in Bistrita to photograph the high-towered Saxon Evangelic Church (which is closed), and for a pee break (I am dying loudly in the back of the bus to choruses of "no whining on Toto Tours" for the last several minutes before we finally reach a useable toilet).
From here the road gets quite rough, and we begin to climb up into the Bargau Valley and across the Tihuta mountain pass toward Moldavia. Because Bram Stoker wrote extensively about this area in his Dracula novel, it has attracted the attention of vampire fans. Hence the rise of an abominable place called Hotel Castel Dracula. Don't get me wrong; it is a fantastic hotel and the surrounding countryside is gorgeous, but they have gone over the top with the Dracula theme.
03 Into The Depths
We check in, take an hour to freshen up and change (I wear all black to try and get into the spirit), then meet in the lobby at 8:45pm. We are taken first to the dungeon, and to a special vault with a coffin where Dracula is supposed to live. A young lady is holding a candle in the pitch black, and she walks slowly around the walls of the small room illuminating scenes of Dracula and his minions and victims, who all happen to be buxom babes. You can just forget about anything you ever read from Anne Rice!
Will I spoil it terribly if I tell you what happens at the end? I am sure you can guess that at a certain point in her story she invites us to look into the coffin, and a costumed Dracula sits up and she douses the candle while someone flips a light switch on and off in rapid succession. Dracula has been startled from his lair, and as we leave the room (after feigning surprise and terror with girlish screams) a hand gropes out at us from behind a corridor wall.
We are ushered outside to where a really cheesy costumed monster in tennis shoes is pouring gasoline on a bonfire. It is really windy, so he has to practically throw an entire gallon of fuel on the fire before it finally catches.
04 Underworld Playground
As we walk towards the fire we are handed vampire's blood (which of course if some sort of fruity liquor), and once the fire dies down enough we are given pitchfork shaped barbecue skewers with steak on the end. We are told to grill our own meat on the fire and taken to a picnic table and told to eat just that meat and bread. One of our number thinks this is really our dinner, and says he is going to bed, and asks when we should meet in the morning. I assure him this is all just good fun, and that dinner will be served shortly in the restaurant. Greatly relieved, he retreats to the warmth of the lobby to wait while we wolf down our food, which is really quite yummy (with only the slightest tinge of gasoline flavoring). Some neighborhood dogs, obviously used to this routine, come begging for scraps and are generously fed.The meal is really quite good, if consumed somewhat late. A huge salad is the starter, followed by rolled pork stuffed with sausage and ham and mushrooms, with vegetables, rice and French fries. Hot doughnuts with fruit and whipping cream is the desert, plus one of the clients from Belgian has brought a box of the most amazing chocolates which he passes around the table twice. Groan!
Another long day on the road tomorrow, so I lay my head on the pillow with gratitude that we will be leaving the land of Dracula behind as we visit the world famous painted monasteries of Bucovina tomorrow.
Hugs,
Dan
