A graveyard of old Transylvanian Saxons, a perfect backdrop for a tale of the Undead, Stoker's original name for his novel. LUKE SPENCER

The night in Transylvania is as scary as you would like. In winter, a thick and deep mist covers thick forests of pines and fir trees. Above the mist, you can see the outlines of the towers and towers of old castles and fortified churches. Many of the old houses there still burn wood fires and add to the smoky air, while the cities are filled with Gothic and Baroque buildings that were once beautiful, but which are now characterized by chipped paintwork and facades in ruined.

At night it is common to hear howls of stray dogs or wolves in the woods. It's easy to see why Bram Stoker chose this part of Romania as the setting for his scariest creation, Dracula.

The first part of Stoker's gothic horror masterpiece consists of a travel journal written in shorthand by a young English lawyer, Jonathan Harker. Jonathan Harker travels across Europe to buy land for a noble client. Harker keeps a detailed diary of his trip from Munich to Transylvania, where he wants to meet the mysterious Count Dracula in his castle.

My plan was to follow in the footsteps of the fictional Harker, to take the same train routes - preferably in the same cities and hotels - and to finish my trip in the house of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration of the real Dracula. Partly surrounded by the Carpathians, Transylvania is still largely unexplored despite its beauty and richness in fascinating sites dating back several centuries.

What better way to explore Transylvania than to see if the novel that made it famous can be used as a travel guide today?

When Dracula was published in 1897, Munich Central Station was only half a century old. It opened in 1848 and has a magnificent hall in red and yellow bricks in the Italian Renaissance style. It was largely destroyed by American bombing during the Second World War but regained its status as the most important railway station in Bavaria after the war.

In the book, Harker's steam train journey from Munich in the 1890s took almost 12 hours. Today, thanks to the high-speed line, Vienna can be reached in just under four minutes.

May 3. Beatriz - left Munich on May 1 at 8:35 p.m. and arrived in Vienna early the next morning; should have arrived at 6:46 a.m., but the train was an hour late.
- Jonathan Harker's diary

As I had more time than the young protagonist of Stoker, I stopped in Vienna to visit a macabre monument. One of the most important monuments in Vienna is St. Stephen's Cathedral, over 700 years old. Mozart was married here and Joseph Haydn sang as a choirboy in the richly carved galleries. But at the bottom of the cathedral, there is something much crueler: catacombs full of bones of more than 11,000 victims of the bubonic plague.

A walk in the cold depths of the cathedral, surrounded by skeletons, is quite frightening. It is until you reach the crypt. Because here the hearts and entrails of 72 members of the Habsburg royal family rest in rows of sealed bronze glasses. It seemed an appropriate Gothic start to my journey.

From Vienna, I reserved a seat on the evening train for Budapest, the snow fell as we drove east across Hungary. During the four-hour trip, I thought of the entry to Harker's diary:

I felt like we were leaving the West and entering the East. The magnificent westernmost bridge over the Danube, which here has a noble width and depth, has led us to the traditions of Turkish rule.

It is important to note that the author while following in the footsteps of the protagonist of Stoker, has never set foot in Romania. Transylvania, which offers such a threatening backdrop to Dracula, was completely new, although the Dublin-born Stoker almost certainly studied the region and its folklore at the British Museum in London.

During his stay in the English city of Whitby, Stoker came across a book in the city library called An Account of the Principality of Wallachia and Moldova, which was written by William Wilkinson in 1820. Stoker's notes on the book included the mention of a historical figure: Dracula.

For seven years, Stoker explored Transylvanian folklore and superstition around the Strigoi, the bad souls of the dead. But to them, he married a real historical figure, that of Vlad the Pion.

Vlad III. Was the ruler of Wallachia (today part of Romania) at different times between 1456 and 1476. He was born in the house Draculesti in Transylvania and, as a voivode (the equivalent of a nobleman), defended his county against the invasion of the Turks. He was given the strange nickname Tepes, Romanian for impaler, for his penchant for tirelessly impaling his enemies and lifting them so that everyone could see them in the city squares.

It is important to note that the author while following in the footsteps of the protagonist of Stoker, has never set foot in Romania. Transylvania, which offers such a threatening backdrop to Dracula, was only rigged, although the Dublin-born Stoker almost certainly studied the region and its folklore at the British Museum in London.

During his stay in the English city of Whitby, Stoker came across a book in the city library called An Account of the Principality of Wallachia and Moldova, which was written by William Wilkinson in 1820. Stoker's notes on the book included the mention of a historical figure: Dracula.

For seven years, Stoker explored Transylvanian folklore and superstition around the Strigoi, the bad souls of the dead. But to them, he married a real historical figure, that of Vlad the Pion.

Vlad III. Was the ruler of Wallachia (today part of Romania) at different times between 1456 and 1476. He was born in the house Draculesti in Transylvania and, as a voivode (the equivalent of a nobleman), defended his county against the invasion of the Turks. He was given the strange nickname Tepes, Romanian for impaler, for his penchant for tirelessly impaling his enemies and lifting them so that everyone could see them in the city squares.

My first stop on the Vampire Trail was the Royale Hotel, where Harker stayed in the old town of Cluj. But if you look at an atlas today, there is no city with that name.

Halfway between Budapest, Hungary, and Bucharest, Romania, the city was called Stoker, which she knew after the First World War when Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Romania. Today it is called Cluj-Napoca and is a lively bohemian university town.

The Royal Hotel does not exist today and may never have existed. There is a historic inn near the train station that is said to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker. The Transilvania hotel on Ferdinand Street is one of the oldest in the city and has been an inn since the Middle Ages.

When the Klausenburger Bahnhof was built in 1870, the venerable old hotel had a different name, the Queen of England - perhaps a royal inspiration for a Royal hotel. Harker's diary reads as follows:

We left quite early and arrived in Klausenburgh after dark. I stayed here at the Hotel Royale. I had made a chicken with red pepper for dinner, or rather dinner, which was very good. I asked the waiter and he said it was called "Paprika hand" and that it was a national dish. I should cross the Carpathians.

Today, the Transilvania hotel in Cluj-Napoca is not afraid to fall back on its possible heritage. The owners have a number of plans being developed to highlight the connection to Stoker and his masterpiece.

"We want to follow the book and create a suite that recalls the time when the novel talks about paintings, images, albums, old films, objects, and furniture," says Adriana Sava, director-general of the 'hotel. "Our project is vast and complex."

The owners of the hotel are also planning to open a restaurant serving dishes from the period. "We think it will attract visitors who aspire to travel back in time and follow in the footsteps of Jonathan Harker," said the Sava. Maybe it will soon be as easy to find the pepper chicken as Harker's waiter had promised.

From Cluj Napoca, Harker continued east towards Bistriz, now known as Bistrita. I did the same almost 120 years after the release of Dracula.

I didn't sleep well, even though my bed was comfortable enough because I had all kinds of strange dreams. A dog screamed all night under my window, which might have something to do with it; or it could have been the peppers ...

The depths of Transylvania seemed so distant and mysterious to Victorian readers as if they could have been invented. When I went further into the Carpathians, I really felt like I was entering a still wild and isolated part of Europe. The trains are indeed as punctual as Harker described, and most are older relics of the Cold War.

Before leaving, a Romanian friend in New York gave me the following advice: Beware of stray dogs (they bite) and people in general. Do not trust anyone, the authorities or the train personnel. During long train journeys through Romania, I noticed that many people locked themselves in sleeping cars with bicycle locks. My car was empty, except for one woman in a black coat, who decorated our compartment with religious icons, put her legs under it and spent hours with her rosaries.

However, the train ride was uneventful and the snowy landscape looked almost exactly like what Bram Stoker had imagined:

All-day long, we seemed to wander in a country full of beauty of all kinds. Sometimes we have seen small towns or castles on steep hills as we see them in old missals; Sometimes we passed rivers and streams that seemed to be exposed to large floods with large stone edges on both sides ...

Count Dracula instructed me to go to the Hotel Goldene Krone, which I found to my delight and which was completely outdated because of course, I wanted to see everything I could from the country trails.

Bistrita is a small town in northern Transylvania, which sits on a river and is surrounded by mountain villages. There is a hotel called Corona de Aur (Romanian for gold crown), but it was built in 1974 during the dark days of Romanian communism. Indoors, you can dine in a restaurant called Salon Jonathan Harker, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Upon his arrival at Bistrita, Jonathan Harker established his first contact with his mysterious client in the form of a ticket which he left at the hotel.

My friend - welcome to the Carpathians. I expect you with impatience. Sleep well tonight ...
Your friend
Dracula

On the last leg of his trip, Harker was supposed to take the bus over the Borgo Pass in the mountains. For the first time, he encounters growing tensions and unrest among the villagers and notices that they cross paths each time he mentions his mission.

Just before I left, the old lady came to my room and hysterically said to me, "Should we go? Oh, young man, should we go?"

If the villagers of the novel are afraid to mention Dracula, there is a hotel in the mountains which is very happy. On the Tihuta Pass in the Bârgāului Mountains is the Castle Dracula Hotel, which is said to be located at the approximate location of the Book Castle.

But while Stoker's Dracula's castle was "a huge castle ruin with no beam of light coming out of its tall black windows and broken battlements showing a jagged line against the moonlit sky", the Castel Dracula hotel was designed in a solid concrete style, about three decades ago as a tourist attraction,

The hotel is designed under the motto of a vampire and has an associated cemetery (not real), a bar in a tower and the "tomb" of Dracula in the basement. While the overall impression is more in the theme park than in the Victorian style, the hotel highlights an interesting aspect of Romanian history.

It was built in 1983 under the totalitarian regime of the communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu to attract tourists from Dracula. Although Romania is one of the most isolated countries behind the Iron Curtain, the Castel Dracula hotel is said to have been commissioned by Ceauşescu himself. The Romanians were no strangers to his madness; He is a man who pillaged a large part of the capital Bucharest to build the immense Palace of the Parliament, which is still one of the tallest buildings in the world.

There was no trace of Dracula in Piatra Fântânele, the village where the hotel is located. I headed south to find Bran Castle outside the city of Brasov.

If you search for "Dracula's Castle" online, you will discover images of what the Transylvains called Castelul Bran without exception. An imposing fortress on the mountainside that separates Transylvania from the Wallachia region, surrounded by thick forests and overshadowing a small village, Bran Castle certainly recalls a place where a centuries-old vampire could live.
When the young English lawyer started to climb the mountains, each villager he encountered pointed to "magic or protection from the evil eye" when he learned his goal. As I boarded a fragile ten-year-old bus for Bran, I was happy to see that the front window was covered with half a dozen eye-shaped religious icons hung on red ribbons.

Bran Castle has little to do with Count Dracula or Vlad Tepes, but has become known as "Dracula Castle". The castle stands on a ridge and shadows the small village below, where the market merchants sell wooden crosses and plastic teeth. It is surrounded by thick forests and swirling mists and has a certain aura of mystery and goosebumps.

During a visit in the calm winter months, I remembered the scene in which the increasingly nervous Jonathan Harker met Dracula for the first time:

He made no movement to meet me but stood like a statue as if his gesture of greeting had engraved it in stone. As I crossed the threshold, he advanced impulsively and took my hand with a force that made me start. An effect that was not diminished by the fact that it looked icy like the hand of a dead man as alive.

Inside Bran Castle, there are narrow spiral staircases, secret passageways, and a torture chamber. Under the turrets, there is a lot of furniture from the 20th century, which dates from the time of the castle as a royal summer residence in the 1920s and 1930s. The country's communist authorities transformed it into a museum in 1956.

According to his extensive research, Bram Stoker would probably have read information about Bran Castle, but Vlad the Impaler is hard, if ever, unlike Poenari Castle, which is now a ruined mountain fortress.

Brasov was founded by Germanic knights in the 13th century and is a beautiful city surrounded by the Southern Carpathian mountains, dense forests and fortified churches. Many of its streets are lined with faded Belle Epoque buildings. Formerly painted in bright pastel shades of pink, yellow and turquoise, they are collapsing today after half a century of neglect in the communist era.

With the exception of one special feature, an oversized white city sign that looks like Hollywood, the city still retains the atmosphere of the Middle Ages.

Still, in the footsteps of Stoker, I drove further north to the ancient medieval city of Sighisoara and to the home of Vlad the Impaler. Sighisoara is one of the few surviving citadels in Europe. Climbing the steep, cobbled streets and entering the city gates is like traveling back in time to the 1600s. In fact, Sighisoara has remained so intact that its entire historic center has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Sighisoara was one of the seven fortified citadels built by the Saxons of Transylvania to defend against a Turkish invasion. Popular with visitors in summer and winter, the mountain town is calm and practically empty, its cobblestones wet with fog and snow. A steep staircase, covered in dark forests, known as a student staircase, leads to the top of a hill.

After climbing 176 steps, I arrived in an early 13th-century basilica known as Church on the Hill, which shows the coffins of the nobles of Sighisoara - the only tomb in the church in Transylvania. It is one of the busiest cemeteries I have ever seen. Wrapped in fog, with the ubiquitous howls of dogs in the surrounding forest, the tombstones, and fallen mausoleums could be the home of the living dead.

While walking on the Place de la Citadelle, where witch trials and public executions were taking place, I came across an ocher-colored house with a wrought-iron dragon hanging above its entrance. A commemorative plaque noted that the Romanian sovereign Vlad Dracul had lived there between 1431 and 1435. His son Vlad Tepes was born there.

The medieval house is also a well-stocked bar where I tried the traditional Carpathian palinka. The fruit brandy is so strong that there is a jar of lard on the bar that covers the tongue before sipping the fiery spirit. After visiting the bar, you can enter the first house of Vlad the Impaler, wrapped in red velvet curtains and lit by candelabras. A fresh oil painting shows Vlad having breakfast in front of a forest of impaled prisoners.

Stoker was 50 years old when Dracula was published in 1897. At that time, he was director-general of the Lyceum Theater in London and worked under the famous actor Sir Henry Irving. Irving was known for his dramatic depictions of wicked gentlemen and is considered an important inspiration for Dracula's manners.

The novel became a classic example of the vampire tradition, but Stoker himself never had the financial success that his many later film versions had. At the end of his life, Bram Stoker was so penniless that he applied for compassionate grants from the Royal Literary Fund.

Although the author has never seen Transylvania for himself, I was surprised how much he captured the enchanting landscape. In a country where horse-drawn carriages are still visible on highways built by the Communists, and were medieval fortresses seem to continue to appear out of the fog, Jonathan Harker's journal turned out to be a textbook as precise as a lonely planet Victorian.

Bram Stoker was very much based on ancient legends, but the real physical path that Harker followed can still be traced today.