Transylvania: Not only Dracula...

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If Transylvania is famous the world over for the legend of Dracula made famous by Bram Stocker, few until not long ago knew this region lay in Romania so that even in some films was geographically located in other parts. E 'il caso di "Frankinstein Junior" where Transylvania was described as an area of Germany. In fact, however, here's some German in the countryside because it is not difficult to find villages in the Swabian or Saxon race, the legacy of who knows what ancient history. When the Romanian border after years of communism have opened many Germans, however, have preferred to abandon their villages to flee to Germany where their origins to the Teutonic was immediately granted citizenship. But the Transylvania is a melting pot of all races, whole areas in Harghita and Covasna are populated by Hungarians still have a splash of leopard in the region. And then there are the Roma who are not sedentary but nomadic and Secu that Hungarians are archaic with their anthem and customs. With all this melting pot of races Romanians have always managed to live because in this land border in different historical periods the current owners were both rulers who oppressed. And Dracula? This legendary character is the fruit of fantasy Stocker but it was inspired by a historical personage Romanian hero of the resistance against the Ottoman invasion, Vlad Tepes. To dismiss his enemies the Voivodeship Vlad uncertain terms not used, they often returned to the sender impala, a questionable but which prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe. Traces of this character are found in various locations. In Sighisoara, a perfectly preserved medieval town set on a hill is his house, a clock tower you can climb a long staircase and deck. Surrounding the town Biertian is a dip in the Middle Ages, a village of old houses with a large church. A few miles from here the town of Mica Copco was once so polluted by merit the cover of National Geographic as "Dark Town" and was never more appropriate title, because due to the local industry here was really all black, plants, houses, men , children and animals! We are in the district of Sibiu, another historic footprint of the medieval city. To find other traces of "Dracula" is reached, passing through the district of stone Simeria, the city of Hunedoara to admire the fortress from which prints Stocker took inspiration for the castle of the vampire, The spectral Maniero is really not just for the architecture but also because in the shelter of a squalid industrial area that confuses its chimneys with medieval turrets and pinnacles. The interior is vast and empty, a shelter should be the tomb of Iancu de Hunedoara father Mattia Corvino, a King of Hungary also celebrated by the famous Mattias Templum Budapest. Stocker has never arrived in Transylvania, was inspired by the prints of the castle and placed in the far post, much further north, at Step Tihuta where there is now a modern Hotel Dracula "that offers" blood "and mortuoria a room with paintings and satanic vampire that you can certainly do without. More interesting nearby Bistrita where according Stocker was taken to the coach that led to the Castle. The city has a square on which you open the old medieval houses in the center with a mighty Gothic cathedral. In fact, Vlad Tepes not ever lived here, his real castle is much further south, at Bran, the border with Wallachia. This castle does not have the spectral nientre has muted colors, romantic interiors, a beautiful courtyard and overlooks a hill of the homonymous village. We are a stone's throw from the city of Brasov with its large square dominated by the imposing Gothic Basilica and Negra. We are also very close to the little village fortified German Prejmier and elegant winter sports resort of Poiana Brasov and Predeal. But the Transylvania is not only interesting to the memory of Dracula, is a very green, with hills, short intensively cultivated plains, mountains looking alpine villages, towns Habsburg architecture. In Cluj Napoca, the most important, prestigious buildings are reminiscent of his recent past, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Church Home, St. Michael Catholic in a predominantly Orthodox nation, is a symbol of his soul partly Hungarian. Moreover Mattia Corvino was born here and remembered by a bronze monument, was one of the most enlightened King of Hungary. Nearby are some interesting Belis lake that feeds a large dam and the city of Turda, with its deep mine visited. Further south is Alba Iulia Roman origins, an old town surrounded by walls, beautiful churches and the Museum of the National life taken from here. Then there is the Hungarian Transylvania, the Hungarians rapprresentano where virtually all the population, as in the villages around Batan secu Marii and Biborteni or in the city of Tirgu Mures. Majestic mountains mark the borders of Transylvania, the area south of Brasov have already said, but how not to mention wild Apuseni where people live in isolated villages joined by roads improbable, or Oriental Carpazzi where the road to pass first from Moldova Small Red Lake in the winter where you can fish on ice, then by the spectacular gorges Bicaz. But in Transylvania is beautiful even through the road between a goal and the other passing in the center of picturesque villages whose houses, often of wood, playing different architectural elements from area to area. I could not describe a route in a region so deeply that I know, a region that you like.