Built in Romania as Tourist Attraction : Guests Count on Thrills at Hotel Dracula

Traveler, beware. Bats and wolves adorn the walls of these Transylvanian lodgings, and the hotel cook relaxes in a coffin.

Its real name is the Hotel Tihuta, but guests at the $2-million mountaintop extravaganza know it as “Hotel Dracula.” White-gloved waitresses serve Polish vodka to local shepherds, and the concierge’s desk is on the second floor in a tower.

Radu Varareanu, the cook, is the resident vampire. He springs from a coffin to terrify tourists in the basement “torture chamber.” The thrill is gone for Varareanu, who says he’s done the trick so often he feels like falling asleep during the wait in the coffin.

Medieval Stronghold

Set in the Carpathian Mountains, 31 miles south of the Soviet border, the hotel resembles a medieval stronghold. It guards a 3,600-foot pass where crosswinds swirl among craggy peaks--and into the lobby.

Seven years in the building, the hotel opened last year, and business was not encouraging.

“The hotel is operating up to 70% capacity. At the beginning it was even worse,” said Ioan Pasca, administrator of the 70-room, three-story hotel.

When construction was started in 1976, Romania was hoping to attract thousands of Western tourists to visit the homeland of the legendary vampire. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” is set in these mountains, but don’t count on finding it in local bookstores.

Banned in Romania

The novel is banned in Romania, as are Dracula films, on ground that they portray a distorted image of the real Dracula, the 15th-Century ruler Vlad the Impaler--so-named because he impaled his Turkish enemies on stakes.

Vlad is a national hero in a country that takes its history and traditions seriously, and officials are reluctant to link him with the popular Western image of the bloodsucking count.

Michael Lassel, who worked on the wall decorations, said plans to name the establishment Hotel Dracula had been vetoed by the authorities. But other cliches are encouraged.

“The Dracula issue offers everybody a loophole of a dream,” said Lassel.

Night in a Coffin

Visitors may spend the night in a coffin if they want. They can also order “Elixir Dracula,” a heady snifter of plum brandy.

The portrait of a human vampire adorns a wall of the cellar where Varareanu’s coffin lies, lit dimly by two flickering candles. The hotel is looking for 12 human skulls as further decoration.

Few Romanians know of the place because it is new and out of the way, located in a virgin forest on the road linking Transylvania and the northern province of Bukovina.