A day's odyssey to Dracula’s Castle

Perhaps the most obvious attraction when touring Romania is the vampirical aura associated with the country through the figure of the most famous blood-sucker living dead of all times: Count Vlad Dracula. Surprisingly though, tourism in Romania is not focused at all in Bram Stoker’s character. Few visitors know that the real Dracula – Vlad Tepes ‘The Impaler’ - left one of its fortresses, Cetatea Poenari, still standing on top of the Fagaras mountains, in the historical region of Wallachia.
Being at the very end of my history course at university in 2008, I felt it was my duty to visit the castle even though I knew it was far off the beaten path. I had met two romanian construction workers in Bucharest who told me I had to take a maxitaxi to get to the region. A maxitaxi is a romanian microbus that runs on fixed routes for a smaller fare than the train. I couldn’t find the right maxitaxi, so I boarded a conventional train at the Gara du Nord Train Station. Four hours and only 100km later I reached the city of Pitesti where I managed to get another one to Curtea de Arges, the closest I could get to the castle by train.
Upon arrival, I was eyed strangely by most people as if I were an alien from outer-space and when I asked for information people constantly frowned upon my English or my bad Romanian quickening their pace without answering, a sign that they were not used to backpackers. When I someone finally spoke to me they said: Cetatea Poenari is that way, thirty kilometers”. I suddenly felt tired. I made my way to the town only hotel where I asked the receptionist if there was a bus that could take me to the castle. The answer: “You can try at the bus station but probably there won’t be anyone to take you there”.
Fortunately, I found the city’s maxitaxis which managed to take me to the village of Capatineni, the closest one could get to the castle by car. “And to go back?” I asked the driver. “Just go” he replied as he opened the door and left me by the road. Thus I started walking at dusk towards the castle of Dracula, ‘the Impaler’. I wondered if the weather would allow me to get there but I finally reached the base of the mountain on top of which lay Poenari castle.
When I finally arrived on top of the mountain, I had climbed around 1800 steps, intensifying the pace the scarier it felt.. The castle was in ruins since part of it collapsed and fell on the valley down below during the XIXth century, but still stands for a very impressive structure at such a distant place. I took a few pictures and quickly left the place. I could hear distant howls so I ran down the faster I could until I reached the road.