The summit view
The Argeș valley and the Vidraru dam from above.
L.Kenzel — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Kvmgz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Levente Nuber — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Levente Nuber — CC BY-SA 4.0
Bran is the Dracula castle of the marketing; Poenari is Vlad's castle in the history. **Bran** is a handsome, fully preserved fortress near Brașov, built by the Saxons in the fourteenth century to guard a trade route; its connection to Vlad is marginal — he may have passed through, and may have been held there for days. It later became Queen Marie's residence and holds a good museum today. **Poenari** is near-empty ruin on a cliff, but it was genuinely his. Anyone who wants a beautiful castle should visit Bran; anyone who wants the real place climbs the fourteen hundred and eighty steps.
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On the summit of a rock spur above the Argeș valley stand the ruins of **Vlad III's real castle** — not the tourist castle at Bran, but the fortress he actually used. The castle is older than him: it was built in the fourteenth century and then abandoned. Vlad the Impaler rebuilt it in the 1450s, and the persistent account is that he did so with the hands of the boyars he accused of murdering his brother — seizing them at an Easter feast and marching them here to work until their clothes fell from their bodies. The position was excellent: it watched the only mountain pass towards Transylvania. Getting there is the challenge: **one thousand four hundred and eighty steps** climb the cliff in about thirty to forty-five minutes of continuous effort. What waits at the top is modest ruin and an enormous view over the valley and the Vidraru dam. **The site closes regularly because of bear activity or rockfall risk — check before going.**
The Argeș valley and the Vidraru dam from above.
A rock spur watching the one mountain pass.
Arefu, Argeș valley, on the Transfăgărășan road