Holding back the Turkish invaders!

Just about everyone knows the legend of Dracula, but most people don't know about the REAL Dracula. He was Vlad Tepes, and he was called Dracula because it meant "Son of the Devil" - his father was called Dracul ("The Devil"). Both of them were rulers in medieval Transylvania, but Dracula got the most acclaim because he was particularly ruthless. As a matter of fact, he was also called "Vlad the Impaler", a name he got because he thought a particularly good way to make the Turks think twice about invading Romania was to defeat one of their armies and then impale the Turkish soldiers on wooden stakes for the next Turkish army to come across on their way through the mountains. He actually could have also been called "Vlad the Skin-You-Aliver" or Vlad the Boil-You-Aliver" since he liked to do those things to his enemies also. I'm sure he got pretty good service at restaurants.

All legends aside, it seems one of the main occupations of Translyvanians was to hold back invading Turks, so other than using gruesome torture methods, they also built some cool castles. When they couldn't swing building a full on castle, they would fortify their town's church to be used as a refuge in case of a seige. These castles and churches, some ruined and some intact, are scattered all over the countryside around Sibiu. One of the more interesting castles is at a town called Slimnic. It is the ruin of a castle that was the site of several battles over a period of hundreds of years. It changed hands many times, and standing in the ruin, or looking out of one of the few intact towers, its easy to imagine the valley below swarming with enemy soldiers. Our project works with local organizations to enhance these sites by installing signs in multiple languages and increase access by developing tour routes that visit these sites. Click on the link for pictures of Slimnic and other fortification sites http://www.okcomputer.org/gallery/album156