A spooky scene from Transylvania.

Our coffin was booked for six but we were late. Eight hours north-east of Bucharest, we took a right towards Transylvania and got caught in a horse-drawn hay-cart jam in the Carpathian Mountains.

Eventually, we reached the Borgo Pass and arrived at the four-star Castle Dracula Hotel at Piatra Fantanelle.

There was no welcoming fork of lightning, though Visa cards were welcome. A sign by the door read: “Come freely and leave some of the happiness you bring.” No discounts were offered for folkloric beings.

We checked in and were given our keys. I assumed garlic bulbs and crucifixes were available round the clock from room service. The receptionist apologised.

There were problems with the plumbing: no running water! When the bath taps worked, they ran red. Thunder cracked overhead, though it may just have been the workmen.

The receptionist did not enthrall us for very long. Her beauty was far from hypnotic. As no virgins were about, we went up to the Skyroom Bar to wash the benzine out of our mouths. As we looked through the turrets over the Bargauli Mountains, a suitably pallid barman approached our coffin-shaped table.

He smiled, revealing the impressively large canines that had landed him the job. He wore black and his eyes were dark and sunken. He was obviously overworked, or, just undead.

He bowed. “May I offer you one of my best Full Moons?”

I expected him to start unbuckling his trousers but instead he poured me a glass of local Riesling wine. He showed me the label: “Endorsed by the count and grown in his vineyard next to the cemetery.” It bore a ghoulish appellation.

The carpets were red and I had a feeling of being watched by skulls and stuffed wolves. I eavesdropped on the Dracula bores around me. One in particular. The bar was full of day trippers and people batty about vampires.

“Bram Stoker never visited Transylvania. The story was originally set in Styria, which was suggested to him as a location by a Hungarian scholar. He never went there either. When he wrote the book, Transylvania didn’t even exist. It only became part of Romania in 1918.”

The people you meet when you haven’t got a sharp stake handy…

He told us all that the castle described in the novel is probably one in Scotland.

He smiled, revealing the impressively large canines that had landed him the job. He wore black and his eyes were dark and sunken. He was obviously overworked, or, just undead

“The landscape is probably based on Zermatt in Switzerland, where Stoker once holidayed. The count’s physical appearance is probably a composite of that of the poet Walt Whitman, the composer Franz Liszt and the actor Henry Irving, for whom Stoker worked as a secretary.

“Jonathan Harker, the solicitor who travels to Dracula’s castle on a timeshare deal, derived his name from a scenery designer working at London’s Lyceum Theatre.”

A shadow fell across my table. “If you are dining, may I suggest you start with Pork a la Dracula perhaps, with a little maize mush?”

The waiter shrugged as if his high collar was irritating him.

“Sadly, we have no Robber’s steak, as offered to Mr Harker on his famous visit here.” His tongue lapped his lips. “Goulash cooked with the very best cat meat”.

The barmen gave me a Half Moon on the house. I let the Merlot dribble from my mouth as the bore on the next table continued his lecture. His audience looked like corpses.

“This is one of three Dracula castles. The others are Bran and Poenari. The latter has connection with Vlad the Impaler.”

His tone seemed to imply that the owners were blood suckers.

The Castle Dracula Hotel opened in 1983. It has a dungeon and a tomb. The architectural style is classic communist kitsch.

As website reviewers have noticed, it lacks mad coachmen. I noticed my bathroom mirror producing a reflection.

The only fangs I came across were in the mattress.

I asked the waiter if the icon of all evil would be joining us. His laugh echoed around the castle.

Glancing through the window at the darkening day, he showed me his teeth again. “Most probably,” he replied. “The Count likes a livener. He likes a sundowner.”

The end.