Transylvania manor lures guests

MICLOSOARA, Romania — There is only one count in this remote Transylvanian village of 512 souls nestling in the wilds of the Carpathian Mountains — and it isn't Count Dracula.

Meet Count Tibor Kalnoky, a dashing 40-year-old entrepreneur and son of Transylvania descended from a noble family which settled in these misty lands in the 13th century and lived there until communism forced the family to flee.

Kalnoky, a former veterinarian who grew up in France and Germany, moved back to the ancestral home after communism ended in 1989. In the last few years he has created one of Romania's most successful tourist ventures out of his ancestral hunting manor — and has counted Britain's Prince Charles among his guests.

Kalnoky's manor, which opened in 2001, lies deep in southern Transylvania, an area where myth and reality are loosely entwined. But you'll hardly hear a word here about Dracula, the Romanian warlord Vlad the Impaler or Bram Stoker's novels.

Instead Kalnoky lures guests with the old world of Transylvanian customs.

Many visitors come from Britain and the United States to feast on tasty fare of pork or chicken stew, mashed potato tinged pink by paprika pepper, home-baked cakes served by women dressed in traditional old Hungarian costume.

Dinner is washed down with red Romanian wine and guests are warmed by a roaring log fire in the wine cellar before snuggling into decades-old goose eiderdowns in rooms decorated faithfully in the style of the Szeklers — the ethnic Hungarian minority to which Kalnoky belongs.

Take a hike in the hills and you may come across bears and wolves. Bird lovers can look out for eagles, black storks and woodpeckers. You can also travel in a horse and cart for a mountain picnic, cycle to nearby Transylvanian towns or and visit the Kalnoky family hunting lodge. Just north of Miclosoara, there is the cave where the legendary Pied Piper lured the children of Hamelin.

When visitors return to the manor at sundown for dinner they are serenaded by Szekler music in the soft green drawing room, with antique furniture and dark wooden floors. It's low-key and relaxing.

Kalnoky's property was seized when the communists came to power, and it took him eight years to get the lands restituted after the Soviet collapse.

Szekler peasants plow the fields with sturdy horses. Cows and horses amble down the streets. Peasants draw water from wells and store corn in their barns.