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Rachel
It doesn’t look as impressive.
Matthew
Yeah, but hey, it’s still a castle. That’s where he probably was, but if you do wanna go visit, you are gonna have to get up some rather impressive stairs. I think there are 1400 stairs that you have to climb in order to get up to the castle.
Rachel
Yeah, so it’s quite a hike, but according to legend, Poenari was in ruins when Vlad came to power. So he sort of restored it.
Matthew
Nice.
Rachel
There are two stories: either he conscripted Turkish prisoners of war to build it, or Wallachian noblemen that opposed him.
Matthew
That’s the story I heard.
Rache
l
Yeah, see I’ve read two. I’m not sure which is the correct one, but he conscripted basically these people to do the work for him and it was terrible work and lots of them died in the process.
Matthew
Yeah, the one I read is the noblemen who, he just forced them to go work and the older ones died pretty quickly, and then the younger ones worked until their clothes came off. And then they continued working and most of them died. That was the story I read.
Rachel
It’s not a happy history really.
Matthew
Not cool. But yeah, Vlad Tepes did live in other castles throughout his lifetime, so not only Poenari, but this one does seem to be his main stronghold.
Rachel
So that is the story of Vlad Dracula and his castles. If you’d like to learn more about him, we have a really excellent article on our site written by Stuff You Should Know’s Josh Clark and it’s called “Who Was the Real Dracula?”
Matthew
Yes, it’s top notch.
Rachel
And it details a lot of this history that we’re talking about and legends and things like that. So it’s very good.
Matthew
All right, everybody. Well, that’s it for Dracula, but we will see you again very soon for more cool stuff.
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