Travel Tips

The flight to Romania from Malta was at 11.30pm and we arrived in Romania at 3.00am. Imagine boarding a flight at this ghastly hour after a boring day at work ... but still better going for a holiday than sleeping at home waiting to go to work yet again! Anyway, it wasn't really worth it to get a hotel, as we had to catch a train at 6.00am so we decided to stay at the airport, staring at the walls and trying not to sleep. At around 5 we got a taxi to the train station and after some mishaps (attempted tourist scams - plentiful in this country!) we were finally on the train directed to Pitesti. Once in Pitesti we boarded a train to Curtea de Arges. We arrived there at around 11.00am. We went to our hotel, the Hotel Posada and started asking around for the best way to see Dracula's Castle in Poienari. It turns out that there are mini buses in the town centre that can get you near to the castle.

Now I don't know why the hell we chose this place as the first place to go in Romania after 32 hours without sleep or food and furthermore, there are a whopping 1480 steps to climb to get to the castle! Still, the view from up here is unforgettable ... and the castle in itself is a delight even though it is ruined. For more information about this castle please visit my Romania "must see activities" section.

Some 45 minutes and 1400 steps later ... finally there!

The entrance is quite imposing ... I can only imagine how imposing and sinister it was when it was still whole and with Vlad Tepes as the host ...

As I have already mentioned the view from up here is really breathtaking ... it looks like something out of the Lord of The Rings. Can you spot the hobbits? ;-) Anyway, the road in the picture is part of the Trans Fagaras Highway, the scenic road that passes through the Fagaras mountains.

This is me posing near one of the flights of stairs to get up to the castle. In this case we were going down though ... that's why I look quite satisfied ;-)