Bran Castle — Transylvania

Bran Castle was built in 1388 by the Saxons of Brașov and served as a customs post and fortress on the mountain pass between Transylvania and Wallachia. Its connection to Vlad III of Wallachia ('Dracula' — son of Dracul, the Order of the Dragon) is disputed: Vlad may have been imprisoned here briefly in 1462, but did not own or live in the castle. Bram Stoker, who never visited Romania, drew on a combination of folklore, the name 'Dracula', and geographic descriptions from a single library book.

The Transylvanian vampire tradition long predates Stoker. The strigoi of Romanian folklore are undead beings that feed on the life force of the living, animated by a sinful death or improper burial. Until the 19th century, exhumation and ritual re-killing of suspected strigoi was documented practice in Romanian villages — stakes, decapitation, and burning were all employed. The region's complex of mountain villages, remote churches, and medieval fortifications remains one of Europe's most atmospheric landscapes.