Romania, day 6 – Corvinus Castle

Got up fairly early and caught the train to Deva, which was approximately 3 hours ride and cost 34 lei. Were hounded by gypsies when the train stopped for a longer duration at one of the train stations, but we continued blasting our music through our headphones and ignored them, and they eventually gave up and moved on.

Corvinus Castle was in the cards today, and it is known for being the place where Vlad was imprisoned after he was deposed in 1462. It’s named after Matthias Corvinus, the Hungarian king who built it, blood enemy of Vlad Tepes and the son of John Hunyadi, who was both Vlad’s greatest ally and enemy. All these sightseeing hotspots are so hard to reach, and they’re not signposted clearly enough – I definitely think this is something the Romanian tourist board needs to work on, among many others. After we took the train to Deva, we had to take an hour-long bus ride to Hunedoara (8 lei per person, gates 5 and 6), and then a cab up to the castle (2.5 lei apiece – we met another honest cabby).

Their town hall

Didn’t get too many good pictures today. It was Rasnov all over again – hot, blustery, stuffy, cloudy. And the castle was undergoing minor renovation, which made it look even less appealing. I think Matthias Corvinus is a really nice name, though.

Corvinus Castle

There was a large gaggle of primary school kids milling around the entrance, obviously out on a field trip. When they saw me and Joanne, they goggled at us as we walked past them. Some of them waved at us. When we waved back and said hi, they clustered around us, chattering excitedly in Romanian. OK, so not all the kids here are awful.

The admission fee to the castle was 2 lei. I should point out that we had our student ID cards with us, and student prices are way cheaper than the normal rate. You’ll get this all over the world, not just Romania. Seriously, though, travel while you can, before you leave school. You won’t regret it. You’ll save so much money, and you get to meet lots of people gorgeous Continental boys your age, who are on the same wavelength as you.

We weren’t supposed to take pictures in the castle, unless we paid another 5 lei. Frankly speaking, they wouldn’t have been able to call us out on that if we’d really wanted to take them – the castle was basically unsupervised, except for the people at the ticket till – but I figured that we should respect their rules, nonetheless. That’s why there aren’t any more pictures of the castle. I did like it a lot, though, it was full of history. There was a 15-metre-deep well in the courtyard, which according to legend was built by three Turkish prisoners in the 14th century. They had been promised their freedom by the voivode after they’d finished digging it, but the voivode died before his time and his wife reneged on her husband’s promise and decided to execute the prisoners anyway. As a dying wish, the prisoners requested permission to engrave the words “You may have water here, but you are faithless and soulless.”

The outermost tower, where the entrance is located, was the infamous Torture Tower. Now this, I did not like. Although I don’t suppose people have been tortured/executed here for over a century, the whole place gave off a very eerie, foreboding aura. You could feel that this was a place where people had died in pain and agony and terror. Isn’t there a theory saying that houses are able to absorb their occupants’ emotions and the happenings that go on within their walls? Well, I could feel it here. It was so palpable, and the atmosphere was so thick with tension that you could literally reach out and grab it, like goo. Or cotton candy. I heaved a huge sigh of relief when we finally got out. It was a miserable, menacing, sinister place. They also have horribly realistic wax figures of people being impaled, hanged and broken on the wheel. We both got the fright of our lives when we went into the first chamber and saw the torso of a man hanging from the room, his face twisted in anger and wordless torment. We knew it wasn’t real, of course, but it was very, very unsettling. On the walls, they have placards of the various types of torture used during the middle ages, as well as a special feature of Vlad’s famed method of impalement. Apparently this castle is maintained by the University of Cluj-Napoca, the capital of Transylvania. They’ve done a good job, but I can honestly say that this place is scarier than London Tombs, which frazzled me too. When fact is stranger than fiction..

We decided to walk back to Hunedoara’s autogara, since by now we knew the way, and according to google maps it would only take half an hour. There’s a cathedral located about 10 minutes walk from Corvinus Castle, which we stopped by to see.

We were feeling peckish, so decided to stop at a pub and have a late lunch. That scare in the Torture Tower really took the stuffing out of me. The pub was very nice. As usual, we were the only customers (their people can’t afford to eat here..)

Romanian traditional dress. The sash is emblazoned with the colours of their flag. The Romanians are an immensely patriotic bunch - you see the flag everywhere you go.

I was somewhat disappointed by the food though. I ordered a polenta, but it was just too oily and salty for me to finish. I only ended up eating about half of it, and threw the rest away. If I had finished it, my cholesterol levels would probably have gone through the roof.

Should come with the warning, May cause high blood pressure

However, this was the only borderline-unsatisfactory restaurant we ate at, in direct opposition to the restaurants in the UK which are revolting and overpriced, every last one of them. Finding a good restaurant in London is like trying to find an oasis in the desert. We managed to arrive back in Deva very early. Our night train was due to leave at 2100 hours and it was about 1800 when we got back. We whiled away the surplus time in the McDonalds, where they have free wifi.

My last chapter will come shortly after. The Romanian NIGHT TRAIN, hurtling us through the shadowy plains of Transylvania and the forbidding peaks of the Carpathians. It was one of the most exhilarating and romantic experiences of my life. Will be back soon.