A Canadian brother and sister spent Halloween night curled up in velvet-lined coffins in the Transylvanian castle that inspired the Dracula legend, the first time in 70 years anyone has spent the night in the gothic fortress.
The siblings from Ottawa beat 88,000 people who entered a competition hosted by Airbnb to get the chance to dine and sleep at the castle in Romania.
Events manager Tami Varma and her brother Robin, a student, are the grandchildren of Devendra Varma, a specialist in English gothic tales and an expert in vampire lore who visited the castle in 1971.
Photo: AP
They were asked in the competition: “What would you say to Dracula if you met him?”
Tami Varma answered that their late grandfather “was the world’s leading expert in gothic literature and was considered to be an expert in Dracula... We would do just about anything to stay as a guest with the original vampire who inspired him.”
Adding to the eerie atmosphere on Monday, light snow fell on the 14th-century castle where Vlad the Impaler, the prince who inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel, is believed to have stayed.
The pair arrived in a stagecoach drawn by two black horses as a buzzing drone filmed the event.
“The nerves are kicking in. It’s becoming real, really fast,” Tami Varma, 31, said, climbing down from the stagecoach in a slinky red dress and boots.
She told castle manager Alex Priscu she was “overwhelmed. This may be the best day of our lives.”
Her brother spoke little and at times seemed embarrassed.
They were greeted inside the castle by Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker and guardian of the Dracula legend, who repeated the words used by the count.
“Welcome to my house. Enter freely. Go safely and leave something of the happiness you bring,” he said.
They dined on chicken paprikash, the meal described in the 1897 horror novel. A candlelit table was set, laden with Transylvanian smoked cheeses, fruit, and bottles of plum and blackcurrant brandy.
The pair recalled their grandfather’s trip to the castle 45 years ago.
“He left before the sun had set, in the daytime, and he heard footsteps, somebody following him,” Tami Varma said.
“So in a bizarre and interesting way we are honoring him tonight, and we know he’s with us in the castle,” she said.
Whether the count made an appearance during the night remains a mystery that nobody at Bran Castle would reveal.
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