Bran Castle,known as 'Dracula’s Castle';the exterior of The Prince’s Retreat.Credit:Alamy
The prince has nicked my strawberries. They were here on the breakfast buffet yesterday,jolly little bundles bursting with summery goodness,but this morning they're gone."No strawberries?"I ask my host."No,"she says."They didn't have any at Zalanpatak for the prince's breakfast,so they all went there."
I'm staying at Count Kalnoky's Guesthouse in the village of Miklosvar in Romania's Transylvania. The Count has another property,The Prince's Retreat,at nearby Zalanpatak. The prince in this case is Charles,Prince of Wales,a long-standing devotee of Transylvania,and he happens to be staying at this very moment. And he's eating my strawberries for his breakfast.
I can't complain too much. What's the point of being heir apparent to the British throne if you can't swipe the strawberries? I'm also coming around to his way of thinking about Transylvania because this,as he so often says,is a very special corner of Europe.
A room in The Prince’s Retreat.
Transylvania – it translates as"beyond the forest"– is Romania's heartland,cradled within the crescent formed by the Eastern Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps. Thanks to Hollywood,the home of Count Dracula is far better known as fiction than fact. But this is the most intact medieval landscape in all of Europe.
Transylvania is still dominated by Saxon fortified churches,hilltop citadels,palaces and Byzantine churches. In its craggy mountains,shepherds still guard their flocks from wolves and eagles,grazing their sheep on pastures smothered with wildflowers that pesticides and fertilisers have erased from most other parts of Europe. Even its folklore belongs to the Middle Ages – wolfmen,witches and,inescapably,Dracula.
The inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula was Vlad Tepes,a prince who was to become known as"Vlad the Impaler". At the time of his birth in the 15th century,Transylvania was a frontline state in the confrontation between Christianity and Islam – not a good time to be a prince. The Mongols were still dashing around eastern Europe and the Ottoman Turks,having recently taken Constantinople,were expanding their empire.
Sighisoara.Credit:Alamy
Under Vlad's rule,most crimes were punishable by death by impalement,thus streamlining the legal process. He was a passionate believer in law and order. In disguise,he would shop in markets and"accidentally"overpay merchants. Those who failed his test of honesty were impaled,and the highest standards of integrity prevailed throughout his kingdom.