If Hungary is on your travel list this spring, make sure to check out the open air art exhibit in the streets of Budapest.

According to the Budapest Sun Online, sculptures, paintings and photographs by Hungarian contemporary artists have broken out of galleries to enjoy the spring scenery.

Szabadság tér, the green area in front of the television building in Budapest, brings together the work of some of the best Hungarian and Romanian photographers who captured the daily life of in Transylvania, Romania, as reflected in the variety of its people, customs, landscapes and architecture. I like the way they describe it: "The 100 images depicting in positive light the Romanians, Hungarians, Roma and Jewish people, as well as the architectural remains of a once vibrant Saxon culture, are celebrated for their peaceful co-habitation within the frame of Transylvania's magnificent landscape."

Funny that they have to stress that these photographs depict the life in a "positive way." Hmm, there is a new, fresh way to look at Transylvania!

I've never watched a horror movie from start to finish and I'm not a fan of haunted houses. Needless to say, I didn't have high hopes that I would make it through Eric Nuzum's new book about stalking vampires. But the title intrigued me enough to start it, and then, well -- when a book begins with someone attempting to drink their own blood, you just can't help but get sucked in.

For Nuzum, it all started over breakfast one day when he noticed several vampire references pop up during the course of his morning meal. His curiosity at the ubiquity of vampires eventually grew into an all-out quest to discover what makes these fanged bloodsuckers so darn popular. The results of his research are gathered in The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, an intelligent and thoroughly entertaining look at the world's fascination with these mysterious creatures.

Tracking the history of vampires took Eric from his home in D.C. to a handful of U.S. cities, as well Romania and England. Along the way he made friends with a countess, spent time in a coffin, almost lost his lunch on a road trip through Transylvania, conducted crucial investigative research at the Las Vegas topless revue Bite, and watched a ton of horrible vampire movies (216 out of a possible 605 films that exist.)

Dateline: Cruising altitude, en route from Minneapolis to JFK

I hold in my hands a just-out-of-the-box, mint condition copy of Lonely Planet's Romania and Moldova. This is significant for two reasons: One, I plan to do a fair bit of travel in Romania's Moldavia and Transylvania regions over the course of the next month. Two, it just so happens that I wrote/updated half this staggering work of brilliance and I'm more than a little pleased to finally be flipping through the final product.

The state of Romania has made one of its first announcements as a new EU member loud and clear: they want to buy the medieval fortress in Transylvania, Bran Castle (known also as "Dracula's Castle") back from the former royal family of Habsburgs, Reuters reports. The price tag? 60 million Euros.

The castle was confiscated from the Habsburgs by the communists after WWII and just last year the former royal family got it back through restitution.

The fortress was never actually part of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula". However, Romania's 15th century ruler Vlad Tepes who visited there, served as an inspiration for the author. The castle has been a tourist attraction ever since.

It always does me great pleasure to step out and away from the places I only dream of voyaging to one day to share with you my personal thoughts on places I have seen with my own two. This happens to be the case today with Cluj-Napoca, Romania. This year marks the 5th edition of the Transylvania International Film Festival to be held June 2-11, 2006 in the Eastern European university town filled with amazing, rich history, people, inexpensive food and culture. Though I have not experienced the festival itself in Cluj-Napoca, I can only tell you checking out local cinema is bound to be an experience beyond phenomenal. The website is slowly but surely updating info on the schedule for this year's event, but just so you'll have an idea of what's in store see what occurred last year.

If you're thinking along the likes of Bram Stoker, Anne Rice or those missed episodes of Buffy stick to the states and search for YouTube clips. Romania is so much more than the folklore.

(Poster is from last year's edition.)