Poenari Castle

One thousand four hundred and eighty concrete stairs. That is the entry fee.

Poenari Castle sits on the plateau of Mount Cetatea in Romania, facing the west side of the Transfăgărășan, above a canyon cut by the Argeș River near the Făgăraș Mountains. It is a ruin now, and reaching it means climbing 1,480 steps.

It matters because of who rebuilt it. Another castle stood near this spot from the early 13th century, raised by the Wallachians and called Castle Argeș, which became the main citadel of the Basarab dynasty in the mid-14th century. Over following decades the name and the occupants changed repeatedly, and eventually it was abandoned to ruin.

Then in 1459 Vlad the Impaler recognised what a second fortress perched on a steep precipice of rock was worth. He repaired and consolidated the structure, and he did it by arresting his enemies among the Wallachian nobility and putting them to the work. It became one of his main fortresses.

This is the distinction worth carrying up the stairs with you. Bran Castle is marketed as Dracula's Castle and has only tangential links to Vlad. Poenari genuinely was his. Romania's own tourism service sets out the difference between the historical prince Vlad Țepeș and Bram Stoker's fictional Transylvanian nobleman, and the places associated with each.

So if the reason you came to Romania is the Dracula story, this is the ruin that has the better claim on it. It is also, being a ruin on a precipice reached by fifteen hundred steps, a considerably more honest experience than a gift shop.