The Vlad Dracula trail
The Wallachian prince and the places his legend colonised: the real citadels, the literary castle, the coast that wrote the novel. Open the world map to see them plotted.
Bran Castle — Dracula's Castle
S · Bran, Transylvania, Romania — The mountain castle the world calls Dracula's — though Bram Stoker never saw it, and Vlad the Impaler may never have either.…
Curtea de Argeș Monastery — Master Manole's Wall
A · Curtea de Argeș, Argeș, Romania — The 1512–17 monastery whose stone lace hides Romania's canonical horror ballad: master mason Manole walled his own wife into the building to make it stand — and the spring that rose where he fell stil…
Poenari Citadel
A · Arefu, Argeș County, Romania — Vlad the Impaler's true mountain fortress, a ruin on a cliff above the Argeș River reached by 1,480 concrete steps — the castle Dracula-tourists say they mean when they say Dracula's castle.…
Vlad Dracul's House — Sighișoara's Yellow House
B · Sighișoara, Mureș, Romania — The yellow 15th-century house in Sighișoara's UNESCO citadel where Vlad II Dracul lived and minted coins in 1431 — traditionally held to be the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the historical grain ins…