The first section of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula concerns Jonathan Harker's trip to Castle Dracula. As described in the novel, the castle was near Borgo Pass It was reached from Pasul Tihuts, a point near the summit of the crossing, on a road leading south along mountainous road into the high mountains where the castle was located. Even Harker's journey from the pass to the castle was at night, in the light of day, he discovered that the castle sat on a great rock overlooking the surrounding forest which was sliced by several river gorges.
The Search for Castle Dracula: In recent decades, as the fact that the title character in Stoker's novel was based on a real person, Vlad the Impaler, a ruler in what today is Romania the thought was that there was possibly a real Castle Dracula. Given the accuracy of Stoker's novel in describing many aspects of the Transylvanian landscape, the first place to look for a real Castle Dracula would seem to be near Borgo Pass. And in fact there were two different castles near both Bistritz (also spelled Bistrita) and the Borgo Pass road. The first was built in the thirteenth-century some five kilometers north of the city at Dealu Cetatii. It fell into disuse and was in a dilapidated state by the early fifteenth-century at which time the townspeople took the stones and reused them in refortifying Bistritz proper.
