Dracula's (Vlad Tepes), Poienari Castle, 320km of driving, frustration at the gas station.

This morning I drove to the Poenari Castle which is located on the south side of the Transfagarasan pass in southern Transylvania. Poienari was the castel fortress of Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince and (Romanian hero) that in the 15th century protected the Romanian people from invasion by the Ottomon Turks. he is most famous for his putting invaders on skewers in the front of the castle after a battle to put fear in anyone who might try to invade his territory and also one of the many influences for Bram Stoker in writing, "Dracula".

I stopped at a gas station to fill up on the way and put 160 lei into the tank and when I went into pay my credit card kept declining....shit! i have money in the account but for some reason this particular station does not accept mastercard..crap. I only had 300 lei in cash left for the next 3 days, so it sucked I had to use 160 lei of it to pay for the gas. Ugh! Thats ok because my credit card works at grocery stores and restaurants that accept the card. Tomorrow I will test my card at a station I have filled up at before to make sure there is no issue..my bank has been nothing but frustration on this trip...when I get back to the states it is time for a change of banks! Ugh!

On the journey today i saw beautiful scenery throughout...Romania is such a beautiful, unspoiled and un-discovered country...I hope it stays that way for a long time...with entry into the EU however, things will probably change and prices will definately go up...right now for the basics, food, drink, etc it is cheap.

Lots and lots of police checks today too. I was in no hurry so I had nothing to worry about and I watched for those little roadside redlight decorations. LOL!

The saddest thing for me on my trip has been all the stray dogs though. I have a soft spot in my heart for dogs and absolutely adore them. They are everywhere here. You don't ssee a deer, sunk or porcupine as roadkill here it is always dogs! Breaks my heart... I must have encountered at least 200+ dogs on todays adventure. I befriended a couple of them at a small store that I stopped at...or should I say they befriended me.

The hike to the castle from the river/canyon bottom reminded me a lot of my Machu Picchu, Peru trip; except here no bus takes you to the top you have to climb 1,543 steps straight up to the castle ruins. they couple on the bottom wanted 3 lei for parking and then the electrical company that owns the land (it's on a hydroelectrical power plant site) taxes visitors 5 lei to visit and 60 lei to take photos...luckily the castle keep or ranger only asked for 5 lei and did not mind us taking pictures...whew! thank goodness because if I had to pay that fee I would definately be broke.

So tomorrow i think i will visit the family village one last time and Petersdorf (Petresti) to see my Great Grandmothers grave and leave some flowers and to see if the church there has archives on the village of Petersdorf in the early to mid 20th century...or any at all. Thursday morning early I am leaving Sibiu to drive the 215 km to Bucharest to stay in a hotel because my flight is at 0600 on Friday morning and I have to be at the airport by 4am..Ugh!  I am going to try to visit the Parliment house in Bucharest on Thursday; it is the world's second largest building right behind the US Pentagon. The sad thing is that it was built on the backs of the Romanian people by that horrible man Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Check out the photos and videos of todays adventure below.

Tom

A guy at the gas station gave this stray a bunch of pork..probably made a happy pup!

The DN7 (E81) follows along the Olt River as it goes between the Fagaras and Cindrel Mountains that make up the Transylvanian Alps region of the Carpathians. The river is running quite high because the snowpack melt and all the recent rains. Would love to raft this on a lazy day.

A new Volkswagen truck, "Amarok"

More horsecarts..gotta love it...only in Romania! Awesome!

These boys are headed to the fields...notice the scythes in their arms.

A cool little church

I hung out with these 2 friendly pups for a bit. I feel bad for a 3rd that tried to come up to me though because the older gray & black dog would attack him if he tried to approach me. Poor guy hid under my car...took forever to coax him out of there.

First sign pointing to Vlad Tepes (The Impaler's) Castle

I like this avalanche warning sign.

The stairs of hell...or to hell..LOL! You have to climb 1,543 stairs to get to the castle. Vlad sure did not want the Turks to get to him.

All the fees you can potentially pay...luckily I only paid the 3 lei for parking and 5 lei to see the castle.

1/4 of the way there!!!

and then more stairs!

And then the castle! Very cool and worth the climb!

Oh My!

     

A girls boyfriend volunteered to be executed...how thoughtful. LOL!

I have a picture almost identical to this from my trip to Machu Picchu, Peru...they are situated on almost the same type of mountain with a river that wraps around it.

And Dracula's castle would not be perfect unless they had these huge cool spiders everywhere.

and lizards too!

and finally black bumble bees.