Doing the Timewarp

Transylvania may be rocky, but not a horror show

Transylvania is one of the world’s strongest brands. Everyone recognises the name, and can tell you the other name that goes with it. Even children who look blank at the mention of Ghormenghast or Ruritania know all about it.
So when I mention that I have a house in Transylvania, the first response is usually: ‘What, Dracula country?’
The next is usually: ‘But it’s not real, is it?’ Or at least it was until the holiday home industry discovered it. Transylvania – the largest region of Romania – is now the next best thing for the bargain hunter. Luckily for me, most people want a holiday home on a sunny coast, and are happy with an apartment in a hideous white block amongst a hundred other hideous white blocks, as long as they can see blue water and have easy access to beer and pizza.
In my village, the bread is delivered every other day in a horse-drawn cart; milk comes from next door’s cow, and if you want to eat out that night, you have to drop into the cabana and let Adriana’s mother know by noon what you’d like to eat and when. Even if there were a menu, pizza wouldn’t be on it. I’m the first and still the only foreigner to buy a house in the village, and the prime source of gossip and entertainment.
The village, the name of which translates as Hill, is in one of Romania’s three national parks, and is on the road to nowhere except the next village, Cave. For me, born in a Sussex hamlet called River, this is just fine.
The place is, in fact, Sussex up a mountain, with added wolves and funny hats. And it’s a Sussex of 50 years ago - this is my time machine, where at first glance the 20th century has made little mark.
It’s a long way from my terraced house in Liverpool.
How I got there was a matter of things falling on me out of the blue. I suppose I had something to do with it, but it seems as if I just stood there and said yes.
In 2003 I wanted a holiday, and turned up a website that offered a week in Transylvania. How could I resist, having been brought up on Dracula movies? What I could see of the area on the web looked great - medieval towns, unspoilt landscapes, cheap prices. Bargain.
My first night – this was August – there was a thunderstorm. My room looked out onto a range of pointy green hills, and I sat on the balcony and watched the lightning stab through them as the thunder did its thing. The howling from a hundred canine throats was probably just dogs but this was Transylvania, and the children of the night – what music they made.
That week was a revelation. I was half-expecting Gothic pine forests, darkness and suspicious locals. What I got was light, warmth, colour and an irresistible welcome. Yes, we got taken to Bran Castle, alias Dracula’s Castle, but apart from a mention of 14th century ruler Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), it was all fairytale romance. Not a long tooth in sight.
Dan Marin, our guide, took us by horse and cart up to Magura – now ‘my’ village. The road, a stony, rutted track, winds up from the valley floor through beechwoods full of hazels, dog roses, sloes and the odd spruce. After the twelfth hairpin came the view across to velvety green meadows scattered with wooden houses. We all duly caught our breath. The road winds round the side of the hill and then along a narrow ridge lined with houses and populated by dogs, chickens and small children. Stunning, unspoilt, magical. We ate lunch on a terrace looking over fields full of marigolds framed against the pale mass of a mountain ridge. I got stung by a wasp which had crawled up my trouser leg, which made the afternoon’s entertainment, but I was relieved to learn that although wasps and bees were OK at this altitude, mosquitoes weren’t.
I went home knowing I’d be back, but not even dreaming of buying property. But life is twisted.
(more later...)