EuRo Eclipse 99 at Historical Castle Dracula Period: 9-16 August 1999

Arrive in Romania's capital, Bucharest - first mentioned in a document dated 1459 and signed Vlad Dracula. Your guide will transfer to the Lebada 4* hotel, an old Princiary residence located on the Pantelimon Island. Dinner will be served at Count Dracula Club - a unique theme restaurant, a favorite place for Count’s friends. Sleep well tonight, your innocence will protect you.

meet our guide at Otopeni airport and transfer to Lebada (4*) hotel;

short sightseeing tour of Bucharest;

Jonathan Harker’s menu at Count Dracula Club;

optional visit to Bucharest Astronomical Observatory "Amiral Vasile Urseanu" (15 US$/person);

Your initiation will start under the ruined orchards of the Old Court where Vlad the Impaler often stepped for searching a bottle of old wine or questioned his prisoners. The Glass - workers Square - the same manufactory who has made even in these times candlesticks and cups for the meals of great Prince.

sightseeing of historical parts of Bucharest including Old Court, Glass-workers Square, Manuc’s Inn, Stavropoleos Church, Lime-tree Inn;

departure to Targoviste, visit the Royal Court and Chindia Tower;

visit the main SARM camp;

drive to Curtea de Arges. Visit the monastery and listen the legend of Mason Manole;

transfer to the Arefu village, the only village which knows the stories about Vlad;

dinner and overnight in Arefu village in peasant farms (alternative: Posada 2* hotel in Curtea de Arges);

You should prepare for the biggest event of the country. You are choosen from the few one to be in the centre of the Universe - Castle Dracula. Picture in your mind a row of boyars punished to carry river stones all the way up and rebuild the fortress; the Ottoman Turks sneaking at night to capture prince Vlad Dracula, encamped in the fortress; the suicide of Vlad's wife to avoid capture... After the eclipse, drive to Sibiu via Transfagarasan route (the highest road in Romania), used also by Vlad to escape in Transylvania from the Ottoman army.

observing the eclipse either to the top of the hill at Dracula historical fortress (please note that due the limited capacity the access is restricted at 100 persons) or within his visibility area near Pitesti (umbral duration 2m23s);

assist the Great Event of the century up to the ruins of Castle Dracula: "life and death together at a whispering distance";

transfer to Sibiu via Transfagarasan, the highest road in Romania;

dinner and overnight in Sibiu at "The Emperor of Romans" Hotel 3*;

Medieval parts of Sibiu knowing well Vlad, through his cousin’s acts - Mihnea the Bad. Drive to Sighisoara - the best preserved mediaeval citadel and serve lunch in the very house where Dracula was born in 1431, under the Princiary eyes of his father, watching from a fresco on the walls. Bram Stoker wrote about Transylvania: "as centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool. A land with dark history, a land with dark forests". The county contains a lots of folklore stories about ghosts, vampires, witches and other dark creatures. In his book, Jules Michelet has registered 1700 witch trials followed by public executions. You will witness now to a witch trial, a common thing in the XVIIth century.

sightseeing of medieval Sibiu: the Old Square, the City Walls, the Pharmacy Museum, the Cathedral;

transfer to Sighisoara via Biertan, visit the fortified church Biertan;

lunch in Sighisoara, right in Vlad Dracula’s birth-house;

sightseeing of Sighisoara including the Citadel, Clock Tower, the Weapons Museum, the Evangelical Church;

"The witch-trial" - initiation show with 25 actors in mediaeval costumes;

drive to Targu Mures, dinner and overnight at Continental 3* hotel in Targu Mures;

Drive to the picturesque, mediaeval town of Bistrita. "I found that Bistrita, the post-town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well known place", wrote Jonathan Harker in his diary (Bram Stoker's "Dracula", page 10). Prince Vlad the Impaler-Dracula dims out into history; Count Dracula arises from nightmares and fears. Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone hotel" (page 12). We owe a lot to Harker's disclosures as to the ways of the Count. But unlike Harker, your arrival at the Castle tonight is shielded by knowledge. Meet several people in Bistrita, confidants and friends of the Count, and try to remember their advice.

"Let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they call "robber steak" - bits of bacon, onion and beef, seasoned with red pepper and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire. The wine was Golden Mediasch" (page 14). This is precisely what are getting for a meal at the same "Golden Krone". Proceed along the river Borgo to the heights of the Borgo Pass and the castle. The pass in one of the most majestic places on earth. The farm-houses here are so rare, that each has its own, private cemetery, living and dead within whispering distance.

Welcome to Castle Dracula! "Enter freely and of your own will". The Count said to Harker: "You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand" (page 32). Should you receive an invitation to a masque-ball at the castle, answer it; the Count, in his usual solitude, likes to socialize at times of his own choice. Of course, the Count's wardrobes are yours to dress for the Occasion.

transfer to Bistrita;

sightseeing of Bistrita, Evangelical Church, Dolls Museum in the Tower, the past lives and artifacts in Livezile - Jonathan Harker meal at Golden Crown;

drive through Borgo Pass to Dracula Hotel;

attending the masque-ball;

dinner and overnight at Dracula Hotel 3*;

Good morning in Castle Dracula, Twilight Zone! Your accomplishments so far will turn disbelieving ears, so stamp your diploma to know that you had not dreamt it all. A white witch on the Count's domains is waiting for you. She lives alone at the edge of a wood, surviving by wisdom. No simpler, yet graver tunes of Life have ever been recorded under the Borgo clouds. The exit from your present dracularian condition resembles a driver's gradual surfacing. Return to afar corner of Transylvania and join the innocent tourists in a splendid city: Brasov. It is not a circle you have rounded off; it is an ascending spiral.

drive to Brasov via Bistrita Valley;

sightseeing of spectacular Bicaz Gorges;

lunch at Red Lake;

short sightseeing of mediaeval Brasov including Old Square, Black Church;

dinner with classic music at Citadel of Brasov;

overnight at Aro-Palace 4* hotel in Brasov;

In a cold day of December 1476, the Prince Vlad the Impaler Dracula was assassinate in the battle or, who knows, by treachery, on the northern fields of Bucharest. In 1931, Dinu Rosetti, the famous archeolog - was digging on Snagov Island. A legend says that Vlad is buried cross - wise - as you make the first step into the church. Dinu Rosetti discovered in 1931 the body of Vlad the Impaler Dracula; strange, isn't it? The Prince was born in 1431. Now, are we talking about Vlad the Impaler Dracula? Is it anybody else? Which are the proves, the signs, the stories?

drive to Bran via Rucar;

visit Castle Bran, a license of Castle Dracula;

transfer to Sinaia via Paraul Rece, visit Peles Castle and Sinaia Monastery;

lunch to "Furnica Chalet";

on the way to Bucharest stop at Snagov for transfer by boat to Snagov Island to visit the Monastery and Vlad’s;

dinner and overnight at "Lebada" 4* hotel;

Return to Otopeni airport for your flight home and think of a full-blown Grade II "Twilight Zone Dracula tour". Keep in touch.

Price of the package: 795 US$/person, valid for a group of 15 persons. Includes: accommodation at listed hotels or similar, full board, transfers, transport with air conditioner minibus, entrance museum fees, TSD initiation shows, English speaking guide, our assistance. Single supplement: 110 US$.

Deposit: 300 US$/pers, payable to TSE 99 in Canada until May 1st, 1999;
Balance: 495 US$/pers + (110 US$/pers single suppl), payable to Romantic Travel in Romania until 1st July 1999.