Vlad the Impaler's Mountain Prison

Blogging from the lounge in our hotel in Budapest. Today we had a busy day, including a 27 km bicycle ride along the Danube, which is decidedly not Blue, despite the song. We drove up a mountain and at the top were the ruins of an ancient castle. Sadly, said our guide Richard Bogdan, this edifice was destroyed by the invading Austrians several centuries back.

Richard told us that this place was significant because Count Dracula was imprisoned here for twelve years. He explained that Vlad Tepes, the son of a man in the order of the dragons, was a military officer and not a count. He was famously known as the impaler. This name came about after three thousand of the hated Turkish invaders were captured and they weren't sure what to do with them. Dracula opted for the torture of the time, and a forest of three thousand trees was used to create sharp poles. All of the 3000 prisoners was impaled on one of these trees.

The mountain has a new attraction this year. They hook you up to a harness and attach you to a cable and you can wizz down the cable to a station on the other side. There are nine of these towers connected by cable, and this new adventure activity is packing them in up here in Visgrad.