Halloween Extreme: Dracula's Castle Hosting Guests For 1st Time In Decades
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Do you love Halloween?
Would you take a 12-hour flight to Romania to stay in the real-life Dracula's castle for a night?
If you answered yes to both questions, you should enter to win an Airbnb competition offering winners the chance to be the first people to spend the night in the Transylvania fortress since 1948.
The site's actual name is Bran Castle, according to the Associated Press, and its fame comes from its connection to Vlad the Impaler, who inspired the Count Dracula tales.
All you have to do to win the contest is write between 50 and 550 characters, describing what you would say to Count Dracula if you were come face-to-face with him in the castle. Entry deadline is 11:59 p.m. CET on October 26. The winner will be flown in from anywhere in the world.
The contest describes the stay like this:
"A horse-drawn carriage carries you swiftly through Transylvania as the sun sets towards the horizon, heralding the hours of swooping bats and howling wolves. When you come around the final bend on the tree-lined road, you'll catch a glimpse of Bran Castle. This misty mountain-top manor is home for the night. The chill that suddenly fills the carriage is not the evening mist, it's a fear older than the forests now grown up around the castle rock. This is the lair of vampires, and you cannot leave until dawn.
Dacre Stoker, Bram Stoker's great grandnephew, will answer your knock on the castle's imposing wooden doors. He will be your host for the night, and resident expert on Transylvanian lore. Enter the castle and explore the labyrinth of lamp-lit corridors, creepy nooks, and squeaky staircases while there is still light in the sky. You may traipse through all fifty-seven rooms, from lofty tower lookouts to deep dark crypts, and even enjoy an incomparable view of the Carpathians from the terrace as the sun makes its final descent. But once darkness comes, retreat inside. Unexpected guests have been known to come knocking in the moonlit hours.
A secret passage on the first floor leads to the grand dining room where an intimate candlelit dinner will await, prepared exactly as described in Bram Stoker's novel. Following the hearty, blood-enriching meal, you will be left to sleep in luxurious velvet-trimmed coffins in the seclusion of the Count's crypt.
Fall asleep to the creaks and whispers of the Transylvanian night, and the sound of wolves roaming outside the castle walls."
House rules include:
• No garlic or garlic-scented items allowed
• You are kindly requested to leave your silver jewelry at home
• Do not cross the cutlery. In fact, please refrain from placing anything in a cross formation
• Beware of the bats in the castle tower
• Please close all curtains before sunrise
• The count is not a fan of mirror selfies
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