That a journey through deepest Transylvania should be a hair-raising experience is not that surprising. But it was the partially surfaced roads, seemingly non-existent speed limit and renegade horse-and-cart drivers – rather than shades of Gothic horror – that made our drive from Brasov to Zabola an alarming 45 minutes. Drawing up at the tall iron gates of the estate at dusk, however, our spirits lifted – this was the kind of entrance that would have made Dracula proud. The romance continued as we rolled down a tree-lined drive, past a lake towards the 16th-century house that dominates the estate. Seized from the ancient Hungarian Mikes (pronounced "Mickesh") family by the communists in 1949, the building served as a children's camp, school and TB sanatorium before being finally returned in 2005. Now, the new generation of...
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