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Hollywood's version of Transylvania, all rocky crags, black cloaks and dripping fangs, does wonders for tourism, but the real place is outstandingly beautiful - and home to a way of life now lost elsewhere in Europe. How much longer can it thrive, asks Deirdre McQuillan

BLAME THE IRISH for misleading the world about Transylvania. Bram Stoker's Gothic novel Dracula, with its bloodthirsty vampires and spooky castles, spawned a host of Hollywood films that perpetuated the myth of a dangerous, remote realm, all rocky crags, black cloaks and dripping fangs. Today these associations do wonders for vampire tourism in southern Romania, and despite its very tenuous link with Vlad the Impaler - a real warlord called Vlad Dracul, or Vlad the Devil, on whom the character of Count Dracula was based - Bran Castle attracts hordes of visitors every year.