Here's a cliff-top location to fuel the Dracula-obsessed imagination. The citadel -- built by Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, inspiration for the mythic bloodthirsty count -- is about 5km (3 miles) north of the little village of Arefu, allegedly inhabited exclusively by descendants of villagers who long ago helped Vlad Tepes escape a decisive Turkish siege of the castle. Follow the road north out of Arefu (there is no public transport, by the way) until you come to a hydroelectric plant, next to which is the start of an exhausting 1,480-step climb up to the castle; be sure to buy something to drink at the little stall, since you'll be climbing for about half an hour. Tepes built the castle as a defensive fortress against intruders from Transylvania; to save costs and punish his mortal enemies, the Turks, he had Turkish prisoners of war do all the work, subjecting them to hideous conditions as they toiled endlessly, often dying in the process. Clearly the enterprise was cursed, and a large chunk of the castle dropped off the cliff back in 1888; the same fate that befell Vlad's wife 400 years earlier when she allegedly jumped to her death, Lady Macbeth-style, during the Turkish siege.
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