Castle Dracula

DURING yesterday's free day in the chess tournament I caught a bus to Bran to visit Dracula's castle.

That, at any rate, is how Bran Castle is billed, although it is doubtful if author Bram Stoker even knew it existed.

Not only that but Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Dracula, and serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, two of the real-life characters said to have inspired Stoker, almost certainly never set foot in Bran Castle.

Still, it was a fun half-day out, and Bran Castle turned out to have an interesting history of its own.

Originally built in wood in 1212 by the Teutonic Knights, it was destroyed by Mongols in 1242.

Permission for a stone castle was granted by Louis the Great, King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland, in 1377 to Germans, known as Transylvanian Saxons, who lived in what was then Kronstadt but is now Brașov.

The castle was used as a defence against the Ottoman Turks and became a customs point, with the village of Bran - now town-size - growing up in its shadow.

Roaming

AM visiting Transylvania, staying in the alpine resort of Poiana Brașov, which has a wooden church built in the Maramureș style.

This became popular in Austro-Hungarian lands from the 1500s onwards after the Catholic Habsburgs banned the use of stone in building new Orthodox churches.

Maramureș churches emphasise height

Modest from the outside, such churches tend to be anything but on the inside, and Poiana Brașov's example is no exception.

Small but beautiful

I am playing in a chess tournament, but have had plenty of time to catch up on my reading, including finishing Tim Parks' The Hero's Way - Walking With Garibaldi From Rome To Ravenna, and - for at least the second time - Philip Sabin's Lost Battles - Reconstructing The Great Clashes Of The Ancient World.

Pair of beauties

I nearly chucked the former in a bin after reading Parks' claim on page five that Pope Gregory XVI banned railways from the Papal States because he believed they were invented by the Devil.

Of course no educated man would have thought that - nor many uneducated ones for that matter.

In fact Gregory was anti-railways for similar reasons to the Duke of Wellington - both thought they would upset the social order by increasing the power of the lower classes, eg by increasing mobility, which would lead to higher wages, and by increasing commerce, which again would lead to increased self-sufficiency by those used to depending on their 'betters'.

I am very glad I persevered as the book turned into a riveting mix of travelogue and history as Parks and his wife retrace the route Giuseppe Garibaldi and his republican volunteers took in 1849 while evading multiple foreign and monarchical armies.

Sabin's book probably needs no introduction for dedicated wargamers. Suffice it to say that while I do not agree with all his assertions, especially with regard to how often the losing side in ancient battles had by far the most troops, I do find his book fascinating.

His rules for refighting such battles are very interesting, to say the least, and give the impression of probably being easier to play than they seem at first sight (I certainly hope so, anyway, because I do not find it easy to get my head around all the mechanisms).

But the bottom line with Sabin is he knows how to write, and that is half the battle - pun inadvertent, but left in-  with a book like this.

Newcastle (no, not that one)

AM visiting Bridgend, which is halfway between Cardiff and Swansea in South Wales.

The town was formerly dominated by the Newcastle, built in 1106 by the Normans as part of their slow conquest of Wales.

Newcastle gateway

The castle is very much in ruins, and so has the advantage of not being considered good enough to charge an entrance fee.

Looking back at the gateway from inside the castle

It would be easy to visit Bridgend and not know of the castle's existence, but there are signposts pointing you across Ogmore River.

Looking through the gateway to St Illtyd's Church

Little is known about the saint to whom the nearby Anglican church is dedicated, but he may have been a soldier who founded, or at least helped develop, a monastery and college in nearby Llantwit Major.

However the church was only named after Illtyd, also spelt Illtud, in the 16th century, having originally been dedicated to St Leonard, a Frank whose cult became popular in the 12th century.

Old Capital

AM visiting Kraków, which was the capital of Poland from 1038 to 1596.

The city's old town is well-preserved, and in 1978 was among the first sites given world heritage status by the United Nations cultural organisation Unesco.

St Mary's Basilica

Church of St John the Baptist and St John the Evengelist

Side street

Wawel Royal Castle

Barbican, built in the late 1400s to cover the main entrance to the old town

St Florian's Gate, built to protect the old town following Tatar destruction in 1241

Saints Peter & Paul Church, built 1597-1619

Bronze statue of the Wawel dragon, which legend has it terrorised the town until killed by a sulphur-filled dead cow left as bait by the sons of King Krak