(This is a short excerpt from my upcoming book, DARKNESS DROPS AGAIN: TRAVEL & POLITICS)

It was a dark and stormy morning. Knowing that we were going to see Bran Castle, the taxi driver apologized for the weather. “What are you talking about?” I laughed. “This is perfect weather. This is Dracula weather.” I drifted in and out of sleep while rainclouds tumbled over the black mountains. We were soon out of the city, driving past grainfields and pastureland dotted with cows and sheep. It was where the villagers live, who live in fear of the castle on the hill. This atmospheric prelude was ruined when we arrived in the small mountain town of Bran and were dropped off at the foot of a crowded street that was really just a gauntlet of shops selling vampire kitsch. It wasn’t unexpected, of course. Bran Castle is the number one tourist destination in Romania. We mostly ignored the shops and made our way uphill to the castle itself, whose facade did remind me of Dracula’s residence:

The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything!

While the drop is considerably less than a thousand feet, the sheer wall did call to mind an image from the book of Dracula crawling spider-like from window to window. The interior was almost cramped, with low ceilings and narrow passageways that overlooked a cozy courtyard. The rooms were human-scale, many featuring small fireplaces and reading nooks. Very understated, as castles go, and about as non-threatening as you can get. There were a few nods to the supernatural, but they were secondary to the actual history of the place as a bulwark against Ottoman incursions.

A small plaque mentioned several “dreads” from Romanian mythology: the Sântoaderi (hooved men who bring disease), the iele (faerie-like spirits who sometimes abduct people, never to be seen again), the Solomonari (evil wizards who ride dragons and are able to summon hail and thunder), and the Strigoi (undead shapeshifters who drink the blood of the living – basically vampires). It was an impressive list, and it occurred to me that there could be a season of Monstrum devoted to American creatures dreamed up by MAGA. The PBS series, devoted to monsters, myths, and legends, could have episodes titled, “The Deep State Cannibals”, “The Pet-Eaters of Springfield”, and “Stephen Miller” (basically a vampire). Darker episodes could explore “The Crisis-Actors of Sandy Hook”, and, “The Holocaust Hoaxster”.

Since there were no rooms in the castle filled with great heaps of vampire gold, I went outside, donned the cape I’d brought for this occasion, and did my best Bela Lugosi impression as Hayley snapped a photo with Bran Castle as a backdrop.