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Forbes Traveler
Fall Travel
World's Spookiest Spots
Anna Vander Broek, 10.19.07, 12:00 PM ET
In Pictures: World's Spookiest Spots
If you're looking for ghosts and ghouls this month, chances are you'll get a better fright in Romania than you will trick-or-treating down Elm Street.
Head to a region of the country known as Transylvania and you'll find Bran Castle, also called "Dracula's Castle." It's said that Dracula author Bram Stoker based the novel's seductive, blood-sucking vampire on the very real 15th-century Prince Vlad the Impaler, who lived in the castle from 1456 to 1462.
The scary space is now a museum. Step inside, and its gothic architecture, winding stairways and narrow, underground passages alone might send a chill up your spine. If that doesn't do the trick, attend any number of daily "witch trials" reenacted on the castle's grounds. Here, actors recreate the vicious methods of torture, including hangings, burnings at the stake and beheadings, that Vlad the Impaler used on his enemies.