Ed's Trip - At the Ryokan

Bucharest: Meet Vlad Tepes

"He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest [Transylvania]...' The Draculas were a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings from the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scolomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermandstadt... and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr', which we all understand too well."

- Professor Van Helsing, Bram Stoker's Dracula

Thirty kilometers north of Bucharest, bordering the isolated village of Silestrue, lies Lake Snagov. On the lake is an island measuring only several acres. The island houses Snagov Monastery, where, reportedly, under a grave lies the headless corpse of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, the Turkish Prince who centuries ago defended Transylvania against the Turks and impaled his enemies upon the tips of spears. Dracula.

Approaching the island