A Canadian brother and sister are passing Halloween night curled up in red velvet coffins in the Transylvanian castle that inspired the Dracula legend, the first time in 70 years anyone has spent the night in the gothic fortress.
The siblings from Ottawa bested 88,000 people who entered a competition hosted by Airbnb to get the chance to dine and sleep at the castle in Romania.
Events manager Tami Varma and her brother Robin, a PhD student, are the grandchildren of Devendra Varma, a scholar of English gothic tales and an expert in vampire lore who visited the castle in 1971.
Light snow fell on the 14th-century castle Monday where Vlad the Impaler, the prince who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, is believed to have stayed.
