The Faceless Gargoyle: Brasov, Dracula, and the Carpathians

Part Two: Brasov and the Carpathians

So, technically, I'm doing this in a bit of a flip-floppy order. We descended upon Brasov late Friday night, and drove through the Carpathians all day on Saturday, and then spent Sunday exploring Brasov a bit more. But I wanted to get Bran Castle and Poenari out of the way before the more descriptiony type stuff.

So let's talk about the Carpathian Mountains. I am a writer, yes? I scribble things down in my journal and focus on the words used and try desperately to describe the color of the sky and the feeling of rain on my skin and all those sorts of poetical things. I get asked questions about this note-taking habit of mine quite a bit and my response is, because I'm a writer. Yet, when it comes to the Carpathians, words are...scarce. Fuzzy. I have lines and lines in my journal where I start a description and then strike it out because it's not right.

In Brasov, we walked through the Black Church, a stunning piece of faith and utter devotion right in the heart of the city, and as we wandered through it, stunned and open-mouthed, we found our way into a little alcove of grave markers and/or recognitions of important people of the past. Above them crouched a dog-sized gargoyle, possibly taken from outside and placed in here, with a weathered-off face. When inspiration strikes, I find myself muttering to myself, murmuring the words that make sense, that sound right; I found myself whispering about this faceless gargoyle, the phrase sticking on my tongue. The phrase returned to my brain as we sped our way through the mountains back to Odorhei. It was the phrase I was missing on our three hour trip back from Poenari as we whipped and wound through the darkening clouds and the lumbering mountains.

The Carpathians are monstrous, but not in the ugly and horrifying use of the term. They feel mythic. The clouds settle over them, a grey-purple crown, worthy of these old protectors. Giants, wreathed in mist and clothed in the finest, richest silk. The faceless gargoyles of Transylvania.

How do I portray this with words? Usually, words are the only thing I have. Words create our world, determine how we mold it, how we describe it, how we pass it on. But, much as it pains me to quote Hamlet: words words words, mere words!

But words are my only tools, especially in this medium, so back to Brasov:

Sat in the cradled arms of the Carpathians, Brasov is quite a nice city! It has Indian food, Turkish food (oh, it was wonderful to have Turkish coffee again), shawarma, and we even found a place to swing dance on Friday night. There is always something happening in the main square in town, there is a bookstore that also sells English language books, and a wonderful little weird cafe that we sat in for hours (it was really quite odd. Quirky. Mama, you would have loved it). I think my favorite part, though, was absolutely the Black Church. Half for what it is, and half for how much journal writing it inspired, especially on the idea of faith and devotion.

This weekend trip was very much all wrapped up in the concept of power and devotion, for me. The sheer...sheer-ness of Poenari is a testament to one man's power and his peoples' devotion to him (Vlad had a very dedicated following in his peasants, remember); and the Church struck me as an extremely impressive dedication to faith. The devotion required to conceive of and build these giant, truly magnificent gifts to the power you hold dearest is truly striking.