Dracula's castle for sale - $77 million
Yahoo News - Tuesday January 9, 03:33 PM
Dracula castle sale spills 'blood' in Romania!
By ANI
London, Jan.9 (ANI): Romanian officials are embroiled in a battle over the country's most popular tourist site, Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's Castle, after it went on the market late last year.
The castle was briefly home to Prince Vlad Tepes III, who was known as Vlad the Impaler and the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. It was returned to the Habsburg family last year after being seized by the Communists in 1956.
Dracula's Castle up close
Within months, Dominic von Habsburg put the castle up for sale for 40 million pounds.
Yesterday, according to The Telegraph, Councilors in Brasov, Central Romania, claimed that they had secured a loan to buy the 14th century Transylvanian castle . . . . Dominic von Habsburg's lawyer, Corin Trandafir, confirmed that his client had approached the Brasov Council three weeks ago, and the lawyer had helped the council arrange a loan with a Vienna-based bank.
Dracula's Bed
Dominic von Habsburg, 68, a US-based graphic designer, lived in the castle as a child when it was owned by his grandmother, Romania's Queen Marie, a grandchild of Queen Victoria.
The Communists turned the castle into a museum. It remains Romania's greatest tourist attraction.
It is not known how long Prince Vlad Tepes III stayed in the castle, or whether he was a guest or a prisoner in the castle's dungeons.
He gained his grisly reputation because of his habit of executing opponents by impaling them on spikes and watching them bleed to death slowly. (ANI)
Doors, doors, locked and bolted
“Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky . . . The castle is on the very edge of a terrific precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm.
Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view, I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!”
From Dracula, by Bram Stoker (published by Little, Brown)
Dracula castle sale spills 'blood' in Romania!
By ANI
London, Jan.9 (ANI): Romanian officials are embroiled in a battle over the country's most popular tourist site, Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's Castle, after it went on the market late last year.
The castle was briefly home to Prince Vlad Tepes III, who was known as Vlad the Impaler and the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. It was returned to the Habsburg family last year after being seized by the Communists in 1956.
Dracula's Castle up close
Within months, Dominic von Habsburg put the castle up for sale for 40 million pounds.
Yesterday, according to The Telegraph, Councilors in Brasov, Central Romania, claimed that they had secured a loan to buy the 14th century Transylvanian castle . . . . Dominic von Habsburg's lawyer, Corin Trandafir, confirmed that his client had approached the Brasov Council three weeks ago, and the lawyer had helped the council arrange a loan with a Vienna-based bank.
Dracula's Bed
Dominic von Habsburg, 68, a US-based graphic designer, lived in the castle as a child when it was owned by his grandmother, Romania's Queen Marie, a grandchild of Queen Victoria.
The Communists turned the castle into a museum. It remains Romania's greatest tourist attraction.
It is not known how long Prince Vlad Tepes III stayed in the castle, or whether he was a guest or a prisoner in the castle's dungeons.
He gained his grisly reputation because of his habit of executing opponents by impaling them on spikes and watching them bleed to death slowly. (ANI)
Doors, doors, locked and bolted
“Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky . . . The castle is on the very edge of a terrific precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm.
Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view, I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!”
From Dracula, by Bram Stoker (published by Little, Brown)