If flickering candles, squeaky staircases, and coffin beds fit your description of a cozy vacation home, Airbnb has the perfect listing for you. As The Telegraph reports, the lodging service is inviting two guests to stay at Bran Castle, or “Dracula’s Castle,” on the night of October 31.
Though Dracula author Bram Stoker never visited the location in person, it’s believed to have been one of the primary inspirations for the castle featured in his famous novel. He described his fictional fortress as sitting “on the very edge of a terrible precipice”—a striking parallel to the real-life building in the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania, Romania.
According to the Airbnb listing, guests will arrive at the castle in a horse-drawn carriage at sunset. The description reads: “The chill that suddenly fills the carriage is not the evening mist, it’s a fear older than the forests now grown up around the castle rock. This is the lair of vampires, and you cannot leave until dawn.”
From there, visitors will be welcomed in by their host for the night, Dacre Stoker, the great grandnephew of Bram and a “vampire expert.” After dining on a “blood-enriching” dinner, guests will retire to the Count’s crypt for a good night’s sleep in velvet-lined coffin beds.
Dracula’s castle does enforce a few house rules: Garlic-scented items are banned, mirror-selfies are frowned upon, and crossing cutlery or “placing anything in a cross formation” is prohibited. Anyone who can agree to adhere to those conditions can enter to win their stay through Airbnb. As was the case with the one-night stay in the Paris catacombs offered through the site last Halloween, guests will be chosen based on their response to an essay question. This year’s prompt: Explain what you would say to Count Dracula if you were to meet him in his castle.
[h/t The Telegraph]
All images courtesy of Airbnb.
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October 18, 2016 – 1:30pm