A Fresh Perspective on Travel Every Day
Driven by vampire lore and mystery, Transylvania has become Romania’s most popular region for travelers. However, beyond the legends lies a magical landscape filled with castles, medieval bastions, and charming old-world villages.
This storied region in Romania is a land of vast wilderness, regal countesses, and plenty of folklore.
In the early afternoon, my family and I strode out of a beech forest and onto a sweep of high grassland, where an expanse of oak trees stood like solitary guards. A picnic was waiting for us, with goulash cooking over a fire and a table laid with a bright, cherry-colored cloth.
This was the Breite, one of Europe’s best-preserved wood pastures, a type of forest managed through grazing. It was here, deep in Transylvania, that the Saxons—Germanic people who arrived in Romania in the 12th century—used to come to fatten their pigs on the plentiful acorns. Some of the Breite’s oldest trees, with deep grooves in their bark, have towered since the Middle Ages. “These furrows are home to the great capricorn beetle,” Peter Suciu, our guide, told us. The insects are rare in other parts of Europe that have lost their old trees, the beetles’ preferred habitat.
Transylvania has long been recognized as a destination filled with vampires, werewolves, and the restless souls of the dead lurking in its shadowy forests and eerie fortresses. Most notably associated with Vlad the Impaler, the real-life figure who inspired Dracula, its dark history encompasses brutal punishments for intruders and disobedient citizens. Vlad Tepes earned his notorious nickname from his gruesome practice of impaling enemies. Consequently, many of the region’s haunted places attract tourists eager to explore their eerie legends.