Brasov - Beautiful Colored Building Running Along the City Streets

"It’s so easy for me to get caught up in the feeling of a city (...), 

where everything is just beautiful color and gorgeous buildings that are so peaceful. 

You can roam around and get lost in the labyrinth."

Nanette Lepore

Brasov - City Landmarks

The Black Church, Brasov's famous landmark and Romania's leading Gothic church, 

was built between 1385 and 1477.

The church was given its new name after disaster struck again in 1689, 

when the Great Fire leveled most of the town, blackening the walls of the church. 

Restoration took almost 100 years. 

Strategically located on a hill overlooking the town and the plains to the north, 

the Fortress was part of Brasov's outer fortification system. 

Built in wood in 1524, it was replaced with a stone structure in the 16th century, 

only to be abandoned in the 17th century after technological innovations made cannons stronger than the building.  

Of the original seven bastions, only a few have survived, 

including the newly renovated Graft Bastion, located in the middle of the citadel's northwest wing. 

On the west side of the wall, walk along picturesque Dupa Ziduri Street (Dupa Ziduri means Behind the Walls).

Catherine's Gate, erected in 1559 by the Tailors' Guild, 

is the only original gate to have survived from medieval times. 

The fairy-tale tower we see today was part of a bigger structure, 

which unfortunately, was demolished in 1827.

Above the entrance, the tower bears the city's coat of arms: a crown on a tree trunk. 

London, 2015: Queen's Walk II

"This melancholy London - 

I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. 

One feels them passing like a whiff of air."

William Butler Yeats 

Bran, Dracula's Castle III - Courtyard Far Below...

"Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses 
in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, 

from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, 

and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky."

Bram Stoker - Dracula

Bran, Dracula's Castle II - The Interior

" 'Let me advise you, my dear young friend. 
Nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, 
that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. 
It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. 
Be warned! 
Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, 
then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. 
But if you be not careful in this respect, then...' 
He finished his speech in a gruesome way, 
for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. 
I quite understood. "

Bram Stoker

Bran - Dracula's Castle

"The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. 
The castle is on the very edge of a terrific precipice. 

A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! 

As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. 

Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; 
doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. 

In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit.

The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!"

Bram Stoker - Dracula