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Show WHEOiiiE Fill continued With my family, I recently spent a week touring Romania, with special attention to Bucharest, the capital, and Transylvania, the mountainous region associated with perhaps the most famous Romanian of them all, the notorious Count Dracula. It's typical of the resourcefulness of the Romanians that while they're not altogether happy about the Dracula-legend- , they've nevertheless managed to turn it into a money-make- r. They actually run a "Dracula Tour" consisting of visits to the spooky castles, palaces and fortresses once inhabited by the celebrated vampire. The real Dracula Foreigners are quickly straightened out about the real Dracula. They learn that he wasn't a vampire at all but a 15th-centu- ry King of Romania, origi- nally named Vlad Dracul and called "Vlad the Impaler" because of a pleasant habit he had of skewering his enemies alive on stakes. "But he actually was a good king," our Romanian guide assured us. "He impaled all the right people bandits, highwaymen, and others who were making the country unsafe." According to the Romanians, King Vlad's enemies took their revenge by spreading spiteful stories that he imbibed human blood and could only be killed himself by a stake driven through his heart all of which was later passed on in the famous Hollywood movies with Bela Lugosi. In any event, there are several fascinating mementoes of Vlad the Impaler birthto be seen his of the in town Sighisoara, lovely place a house which is still in use as an old-ag- e home; a subterranean torture museum chamber, now a prim-lookiin the town of Tirgoviste, not far from Bucharest, and, most spectacular of all, Bran Castle, a gorgeous example of a medieval fortress, complete with secret staircases, perched high over a narrow mountain pass. 500-year-o-ld Fortress towns These folklore dancers carry on native traditions, a though government today puts main emphasis on in- I- lively cities as Brasov, a bustling industrial center at the foot of the Carpathians, and Sibiu, a cheerful college town, where hundreds of students promenade the streets nightly. It also includes some breathtaking mountain scenery. Transylvania's ancient mists and myths seem pretty remote in the bright sunlight of a summer day. So far as creature comforts are concerned, the Romanians are doing their best to overcome the former image cf the Balkans as an area of primitive accommodations, indigestible foods and undependable transportation. The first motels have made their appearance alongside highways, and a badly needed program of road surfacing is underway. The food is excellent, especially such local staples as sarmale, cabbage leaves stuffed with meat, and mam'aliga, a tasty cornmeal concoction. There's a great variety of good wines, but the sweet Turkish coffee apparr ,.tly is the only kind the Romanians know how to brew. dustrialization and modernity. Romanians claim descent from the Romans, speak a language that resembles Latin. Romania gives an overall impression of a country that's plunging headlong into modernity even while it tries to hang onto some of its ancient ways and familiar customs. Tourist officials are just as insistent on showing off their oilfields and auto plants as their mountain villages and shore resorts. In Bucharest you notice miniskirted girls walking with briskly past women shovels and brooms. In the countryside there are stone villages with plenty of television antennas, but only one water pump for the whole town. On a major highway, concrete mixers and heavy transports have to wait for a flock of heep to parade across on their way to pasture land. street-cleane- rs Americans welcome Everywhere, there's a feeling of hospitality to Americans which, as all tourists know, is by no mean commonplace in today's Europe. Russian tourists of whom there are a good many are treated, on the other hand, with polite been invaded by everybody from the anciert Romans (who gave the country its name) to the modern Turks, Romania is a great place to study the art of fortification. One small town, Prejmer, has preserved intact a medieval communal fortress in which the entire population used to take r?fuge in time of siege. It consists of three major components massive stone exterior walls, a broad clearing for livestock and crops, and a church in the center. The insides of the stone fortress walls are lined with three or four stories of private "apartments," one for each family in the village. The effect is not unlike that of a modern As befits a land which has motel. The Transylvania tour takes in such '3 ness but no great cordiality. In fact, a good many Romanians go out of their way to tell you how much they dislike the Russians. We encountered one example on a visit to Peles Castle, a sumptuous former royal residence outside the Carpathian resort town of Sinaia. Because of the richness of the furnishings, visitors are taken through in small groups, and the morning we arrived several busloads of Russians were waiting ahead of us. We were a party of four Americans, and our Romanian guide, a young college student, immediately set about getting us in first. He held a colloquy with the who, after a brief us to enter. hesitation, signaled I had a of as we conscience pang slipped past the Russians, but the guide told us not to worry. "I explained that you were Americans who had come a long way to see us," he said happily. gate-keep- er BARGAIN RATES Current prices in Romania run substantially below prevailing levels in Western Europe. A double room with bath in a s hotel in Bucharest costs about $8.50 per person, including breakfast. In Mamaia, the Black Sea resort, a double-roos with bath at a beach hotel, with two meals a day I ) is about $12.50 per person. At other shore resorts, prices are first-clas- first-clas- half-pensi- even lower. Rail fares and auto rentals are also scaled at lower rates than most Euromotor pean countries. A three-da- y coach tour from Bucharest through Transylvania is available, with meals and first-clas- s accommodations, for $52 Contrast in the old and new is pointed up in Bucharest street scene showdomes. ing a modern building across from a church with onion-shape- d per person. PARADE JULY 22, 1973 |