My imaginiation much better than real castle

Bran Castle is the castle of Vlad the impaler, the Turk-fighting count on whom Bram Stoker based his Dracula character. The castle itself is rather pretty, but as the home of Dracula, it was quite a let-down.

First of all, it's not really a castle but a border fortress. So, it's a lot less fanciful than I'd expected. Second, having just re-read Bram Stoker's novel, I was able to quickly spot all the inconsistencies. Far from not having crosses anywhere, the entrance to the castle itself is marked by a huge cross. Bram Stoker makes a point of mentioning how Dracula had no servants and the castle was totally isolated. Yet, it is quite close to the village itself, and right at the bottom of the castle are a bunch of customs houses and servant quarters. The sheer face of the castle is not thousands of feet tall, merely a couple dozen. And besides, escaping the castle would be quite easy because of its courtyard. There would be no need to crawl away along the sidewall of the castle.

In short, then, Dracula's castle is totally the product of Bram Stoker's pen, and the reader's imagination. In many ways, it's like seeing the movie of a book -- the director's recreation can never quite match up with the more personalized world that you built up as you read the book.

So if you go to Bran Castle (as I did) expecting to see something similar to a castle-prison with a crypt in its basement, you will be thoroughly disappointed.