[English] - The adventure starts, habibi. Where are we off to?
- To hell! - "Please, go outside!" - "Don`t film me anymore! "Fucking idiot"
- So, people here, probably the most friendliest, to be honest
What's up YouTube? I'm here in Bucharest , Romania and
I'm gonna go on a very special trip today. I'm gonna leave the capital of Romania and go to one of my
favorite regions and that is
Transylvania or
TransylvAnia if you want to make it sound like Dracula. We're gonna rent a car, we're gonna leave Bucharest
and we're gonna show you just how spectacularly beautiful Transylvania is
Let's go together to Transylvania!
What do you think of when you hear the word "Transylvania"?
-- Hmmm, "blood sucking". - "Blood sucking", "Dracula", another one...
Hey hey! I am Conor the Language Tsar, and this is the real Transylvania. So forget your cliches about
vampires and Dracula, and all that kind of BS about Transylvania.
I'm gonna be showing you what it's really like here.
And this is a lot more representative than anything you might have seen in cinema or any of these kind of cheesy
stereotypes that we read in the media about the region. Transylvania is not just a stereotype about
vampires and all that. It's actually a historical region, one of the historical regions of Romania and
has a population around 7 million and main cities are Cluj,
which is the biggest, here Brașov and Sibiu, which is known as the 'jewel of
Transylvania'. So here we have the backdrop to Brasov. As you see it's absolutely gorgeous. Here
we have the black church Biserica Neagră. It is one of the most beautiful cities in the region for sure if not of Europe.
This is why I love Transylvania so much. This is exactly the reason: towns, scenery, mountains, fresh air ...
it feels like a million miles away from the 'Big Smoke' of Bucharest.
So that behind us was a 1 million euro church,
which apparently caused a lot scandal when we googled it here in Romania, in provincial
Transylvania. The gold came from Ukraine. It's apparently the only place you could get a gold dome like that.
Opulence in rural Romania!
So behind me here is the famous fortified church in Biertan.
So this one here in Biertan is probably the most famous,
It's the most recommended and most intact
This is very traditional
in the region to have these churches that we're then later fortified, so they could also serve as
defensive positions if the village was attacked.
So I'm inside now in a very special room in the fortified church in Biertan
which is this is basically a room to which
couples that were having marital problems were sent and were made to stay here for one month.
They only had one bed, one set of cutlery and in 300 years of this policy
they had one divorce. Very effective method of
marriage counselling/reconciliation.
[German] - Hello and come often to Hermannstadt (Sibiu)! Hermannstadt (Sibiu) is a very beautiful city.
And people are nice.
[Romanian] - A natural and traditional drink made from fruit
- From fruit ... does it have alcohol? -Yes - It is alcoholic?
- 50% alcohol content ... 100% natural!
The Palinka Producers Association ... - Palinka, okay.
Really good, really good. It's cheese. What type of cheese is it?
- Matured cheese from cow's milk. - From cows ...
- Taste it!
- How many sheep do you have? - 200 - 200
[English] So 200 he has! - 200 - Yeah!
So down there below me is Viscri -- the village is really small and has a population about 400/500 people
But it has one special inhabitant
and that is that the Prince of Wales Prince Charles actually has a house here.
So this is quite an obscure place for maybe a royal family member from the United Kingdom to have a residence.
But it is true. He does live here on the main street.
He's not here all the time obviously, he goes between several residences.
But he does come a couple of times a year and hangs out here, walks through this beautiful nature.
So we're in Transylvania and
that is Bran castle otherwise known as 'Dracula's castle' but the
nexus with the very famous
vampire figure from cinema is
very very flimsy, right ... so Dracula is actually an invention of an Irish-British author called Bram Stoker
and he, while he did take the name "Dracula" from Vlad Țepeș, who was Vlad the Impaler,
who was also known as Dracula.
He actually wasn't even thinking of this castle here when he wrote the book.
He was thinking of another castle he had read about
and actually he wasn't ... while did obviously base the novel primarily in Transylvania
He kind of took these legends that were quite common in medieval Europe and it wasn't really Romanian specific.
However, these guys had done some fantastic marketing
because everyone thinks this is Dracula's castle.
Now Vlad Țepeș, who is a famous historical figure in Romania.
He was a person who existed, he's not a fantasy figure.
But he was ... and he was quite ruthless.
He was known as Vlad the Impaler because he used to impale his victims
his adversaries, his enemies captured in battle on poles, so they were basically put on poles
and they would slowly die. He's quite a, quite a cruel character and
what ... but he was not a vampire, he has nothing to do with vampires in terms of his own behavior.
But they've done a fantastic marketing job because people come here to Bran castle
which is a very nice castle, I have to say,
but it's not really that closely associated with the real historical figure who's Vlad Țepeș but nonetheless
it's worth the visit out here to see it because it is quite fantastic.
So Vlad Țepeș the despot who ruled Wallachia which was a kingdom
here in modern-day Romania ...
He did have an association with this castle
and that's because he was actually imprisoned there for two months
when he was captured by a Hungarian King and he was in the region he'd have a lot of
campaigns against the Germans here in Brașov ... well the Germans who were based close to here in Brașov.
So this region had a lot of German influence.
The Teutonic knights actually built this castle here
And it's really a very interesting historical monument
but don't come here and really believe this is Dracula's castle.
It has nothing to do with vampires here.
So here we are just at a country fair. Really raw food here. That's been cooked right in front of our eyes.
[Romanian] Hello!
[German] - What is your name? - My name is Conor. And what's your name? - Dennis - Great - "Dennis"?
[Romanian]: -- Speak in Romani!
[Romani] How are you? [Romanian] - Only if you pay!
- Don`t film us!
[English] - Boom... Where are we? We're on top of
Transylvania the most amazing road in all of Europe. Is this the best driving experience you've ever had?
- Absolutely! Hands down! Hands down! - Number one, number one!
So we've got the mountains in front of us, we're on the famous, famous road
"The Transfăgărășan" ..I need to learn how to say it, because they keep saying it around.
So this road is known as Ceausescu's folly.
So Ceausescu was a dictator in Romania until ... until 1989 when he's deposed in a bloody
revolution here, so he had this built at huge expense
through the mountains but maybe they call it his folly
but Nicolae, it's an amazing road, at least it you did one thing right when you were robbing the people blind!
Amazing vistas!
Amazing feeling being up here winding through the road. It's really fantastic.
Can fully understand why Top Gear said "number one road in Europe to drive".
The sun is setting here in Sibiu in magical Transylvania
and that is a metaphor for this amazing trip that I've just had here in the centre of Romania.
It's drawing to a close. Sibiu was the last city on the tour.
So this is unfortunate gonna be the end of the trip. I had an amazing time.
I hope it changed your image of Transylvania when you hear the word you don't think of Bram Stoker's Dracula
only and that you realise that it's got a really rich and varied culture here with influences from Romanians,
Hungarians, Germans and the Roma and it has this kind of
magnificent mix in the mountains really
spectacular scenery and cities. So if you liked this video, give it a big thumbs up.
Subscribe to the channel if you're not already subscribing and a hit that bell on
beside YouTube beside the channel's name if you want to get direct
notifications from me when I have a new video.
So from me, Conor the Language Tsar, it's "Aufwiedersehen", "Goodbye"
"La revedere" from Sibiu - Hermannstadt,
Transylvania, Romania.