Bran

The small town of BRAN (Törzburg) is probably the most popular tourist site in Romania. Situated only 28km southwest of Brasov, the town commands the entrance to the pass of the same name, formerly the main route into Wallachia. The Saxons of Kronstadt (Brasov) built a castle here in 1377-82 to safeguard this vital trade artery, and although what's now billed on every tourist brochure as " Dracula's Castle " has only tenuous associations with Vlad the Impaler - it's likely he attacked it in 1460 during one of his raids on the Burzen Land - the fib is understandable as Bran does look rather like a vampire count's reidence. Perched on a rocky bluff, it rises in tiers of towers and ramparts from the woods, against a glorious mountain backdrop, living up to the gothic fairy-tale image that Stoker's book evokes.

Aside from the attractions of the castle, Bran is a good base for hikes into the Bucegi mountains to the east and onto the narrow ridge of the Piatra Craiului , the eastern extremity of the Fagaras mountains, to the west. After lengthy restoration, the castle (Tues-Sun 9am-6pm) now looks much as it would have done in the time of its most famous resident, Queen Marie of Romania . A granddaughter of Queen Victoria and married to Prince Ferdinand in 1893, Queen Marie soon rebelled against the confines of court life in Bucharest - riding unattended through the streets, pelting citizens with roses during the carnival, and appointing herself a colonel of the Red Hussars ( Rosiori ). Her popularity soared after she organized cholera camps in the Balkan war and appeared at the Paris peace conference in 1919, announcing that "Romania needs a face, and I have come to show mine". Marie called Bran a "pugnacious little fortress", but whether because of her spirit pervading the rooms or the profusion of flowers in the yard, it seems a welcoming place, at odds with its forbidding exterior. A warren of spiral stairs, ghostly nooks and secret chambers filled with elaborately carved four-poster beds and throne-like chairs overhangs the courtyard. Not surprisingly, it can get horribly crowded: the trick is to arrive on the dot as the castle opens - the bus parties will be arriving as you leave. In the grounds the Village Museum (same hours and ticket as castle) comprises some fine examples of local architecture, including a fulling mill, and by the road south, the Ancient Customs House Museum (same hours and ticket), in the former vama , predictably stresses the trade links from the earliest times between the Vlachs on either side of the Carpathians, and displays examples of foreign goods including an English clock and a Canadian travelling trunk. There's a hectic crafts market at the castle gate.