Explore the real places in Burgas that appear in The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Topkapi Palace Archives, Hagia Sophia, The Grand Bazaar, Budapest National Library, Buda Castle District and 9 more.
Sultanahmet, Istanbul — Paul's first breakthrough
Paul, the narrator's father, travels to Istanbul in the 1950s following the trail of the mysterious dragon-embossed book that appeared in his library. In the Topkapi Palace archives, he and his mentor Professor Rossi have traced references to documents about Vlad the Impaler's final resting place. The archive visit is fraught with menace — shadowy figures seem to follow Paul, and the archivists grow nervous at his inquiries. It is here that Paul begins to understand the full, terrifying scope of the centuries-old conspiracy surrounding Dracula's tomb.
Topkapi Palace served as the administrative heart of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Its archives contain some of the most important documents of Ottoman history, including correspondence and records from the reigns of sultans who would have interacted with Vlad the Impaler during his conflicts with Mehmed II.
Topkapi Palace is now one of Istanbul's premier museums, receiving millions of visitors annually. The Imperial Treasury and the sacred relics section are among the most visited. The palace archives remain an active research facility for historians.
Visit: Topkapi Palace Museum (museum)
Sultanahmet Square, Istanbul — Meeting Turgut Bora
In Istanbul, Paul and later the narrator encounter Turgut Bora, a warm and learned Turkish professor of history who becomes one of their most important allies. Turgut is deeply knowledgeable about Ottoman records relating to Vlad the Impaler, and he guides them through the city's historical layers. The Hagia Sophia looms as a symbol of the ancient crossroads between East and West, Christian and Ottoman, at the very heart of the mystery the characters are unraveling — the question of where a 15th-century warlord might have been secretly buried.
Built by Emperor Justinian I in 537 AD, the Hagia Sophia served as the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years before the Ottoman conquest of 1453, when Mehmed II converted it into a mosque. It remained a mosque until 1934 when Atatürk secularized it as a museum.
In 2020 the Turkish government reconverted the Hagia Sophia into a functioning mosque, though it remains open to tourists outside of prayer times. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world's most visited monuments.
Visit: Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (historic site)
Beyazıt, Istanbul — The city's labyrinthine underbelly
Kostova uses Istanbul's famous covered market as a symbol of the novel's labyrinthine structure — secrets hidden within secrets, passages leading to unexpected chambers. Paul and the narrator both navigate the city's older districts as they pursue leads, and the atmosphere of the bazaar — ancient, disorienting, full of merchants willing to sell strange antiquities — mirrors their search through centuries of obscured history. It is in Istanbul's older quarters that Paul senses he is being watched and begins to understand that Dracula's servants are real and present.
The Grand Bazaar was built in 1455 by Sultan Mehmed II shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, making it one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world. At its peak it contained over 4,000 shops and was the commercial heart of the empire.
The Grand Bazaar remains fully operational with approximately 4,000 shops spread across 61 covered streets. It draws around 250,000 to 400,000 visitors daily and is one of the world's most-visited tourist attractions.
Visit: Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı) (landmark)
Buda Castle, Budapest — The search for Rossi's documents
Budapest serves as a crucial waystation in both Paul's 1950s journey and the narrator's 1970s pursuit. In the Hungarian capital's libraries and archives, the historians search for documents left behind by Professor Rossi during his own earlier research — the chain of successor scholars each leaving traces for the next. Helen Rossi, the half-Romanian woman who becomes Paul's companion and eventual wife, is first encountered in Budapest and proves indispensable in navigating Eastern European archives inaccessible to Western scholars during the Cold War.
The Széchényi National Library, housed in Buda Castle, is Hungary's national library and one of the largest libraries in Central Europe. Founded in 1802 by Count Ferenc Széchényi, it holds Hungary's most important historical manuscripts and documents. The castle itself was largely destroyed in World War II and reconstructed in the 1950s.
The Széchényi National Library remains active in Buda Castle and is open to researchers and visitors. The castle complex also houses the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum, making it a major cultural destination.
Visit: Széchényi National Library (library)
Castle Hill, Budapest — Helen and Paul's uneasy alliance
It is in Budapest that Paul first meets Helen, who introduces herself as the illegitimate daughter of Professor Rossi and claims a personal stake in finding him. The two form a tense, intellectually charged partnership as they navigate Cold War–era Eastern Europe. The ancient cobblestone streets of Buda's Castle Hill, with its medieval towers and baroque façades, set the atmosphere of layered history that Kostova weaves throughout the novel. Helen's intimate knowledge of this world — and of the Communist bureaucracies controlling access to archives — makes her indispensable.
Castle Hill in Buda has been a fortified settlement since the 13th century and served as the seat of Hungarian kings for centuries. The district was heavily damaged in the siege of Budapest in 1944–45 and was meticulously restored after the war, earning it UNESCO World Heritage status.
The Castle District is one of Budapest's most popular tourist areas, featuring Matthias Church, Fisherman's Bastion, the Royal Palace complex, and numerous museums. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a beautifully preserved medieval urban landscape.
Visit: Budapest Castle District (historic site)
Snagov Lake, Romania — The supposed tomb of Vlad the Impaler
Snagov Monastery on its island in Snagov Lake is one of the novel's most pivotal locations. According to historical tradition, Vlad the Impaler was buried here after his death in 1476, and the historians follow this thread obsessively. When the grave is finally examined in the novel — echoing real 20th-century archaeological investigations — the tomb is found to be empty or to contain only animal bones, deepening the central mystery. The monastery's isolation, reached only by boat, gives it an eerie, otherworldly quality that Kostova exploits to tremendous effect.
Snagov Monastery was founded in the 14th century on a small island in Snagov Lake north of Bucharest. It has long been associated with Vlad the Impaler, who reportedly used it as a place of refuge and allegedly had enemies thrown into a pit beneath the altar. A 1931 excavation of the supposed burial site found no conclusive remains.
Snagov Monastery is still an active Orthodox monastery and can be visited by tourists who take a short boat ride to the island. The frescoes inside are notable, and the site is marketed as Vlad the Impaler's burial site, though historians remain skeptical.
Visit: Snagov Monastery (historic site)
Bran, Transylvania, Romania — The Dracula tourist myth
Bran Castle looms over the novel's Transylvanian sections as both a real landmark and a symbol of the gap between popular myth and historical truth. Kostova's historians are acutely aware that Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula was not the same as the historical Vlad Tepes, yet the two figures bleed into one another as their research deepens. The castle's dramatic clifftop silhouette — exactly what one imagines a vampire's lair to look like — underscores the novel's central tension between scholarly skepticism and creeping supernatural dread.
Bran Castle was built in 1388 by the Transylvanian Saxons as a defensive fortification. While popularly marketed as 'Dracula's Castle,' Vlad the Impaler's actual connection to it is minimal — he may have been briefly imprisoned there. The castle became a royal residence for the Romanian royal family in the 20th century.
Bran Castle is now a museum and Romania's most visited tourist attraction, drawing over 500,000 visitors a year. It houses the personal collection of Queen Marie of Romania and offers exhibits on both medieval life and the Dracula legend. It is privately owned by the Habsburg family.
Visit: Bran Castle Museum (museum)
Argeș Valley, Wallachia, Romania — The real stronghold of Vlad the Impaler
Kostova's historians, rigorous in their pursuit of historical truth over Stoker's fiction, are drawn to Poenari as the authentic fortress of Vlad the Impaler. Perched on a sheer cliff above the Argeș River, it is the real seat of Vlad's power — built by enslaved boyar nobles — and thus a truer site of his darkness than the tourist-friendly Bran Castle. The journey to Poenari, involving a famous climb of nearly 1,500 steps, mirrors the characters' own arduous and increasingly dangerous quest into the heart of a centuries-old evil.
Poenari Fortress was reconstructed in the 1450s by Vlad the Impaler using enslaved Wallachian boyars, the nobility he had massacred at Easter dinner. Legend holds that Vlad's wife threw herself from the fortress walls into the Argeș River when Ottoman forces surrounded it. The ruins are genuinely associated with the historical Vlad.
Poenari Fortress is a Romanian historic monument accessible via a steep climb of approximately 1,480 stairs cut into the cliff face. It is open to visitors and offers dramatic views of the Argeș Valley. A landslide in 1888 destroyed much of the structure, and only partial ruins remain.
Visit: Poenari Fortress (historic site)
Rila Mountains, Bulgaria — The monastic archive trail
The Bulgarian monastery networks are among the most haunting settings in the novel. Kostova's researchers follow a trail of letters and documents hidden within monastic libraries across the Balkans, and Rila — the grandest Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria — represents the apex of this world. A monk named Brother Kiril becomes an important, ambiguous figure, and the hidden manuscript rooms of ancient monasteries like Rila serve as the archive of Dracula's true history. The blend of sacred space and terrible secret is one of the novel's most sustained atmospheric achievements.
Rila Monastery was founded in the 10th century by Saint Ivan of Rila and is the largest Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It served as a spiritual and cultural center of Bulgarian identity throughout Ottoman rule and was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
Rila Monastery is fully operational as a monastic community and receives hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. Its famous Nativity Church with its vivid exterior frescoes and black-and-white striped arches is one of Bulgaria's most iconic images. A small museum within the complex houses medieval manuscripts and artifacts.
Visit: Rila Monastery (historic site)
Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria — Following the monks' trail
Kostova weaves a network of Bulgarian monasteries into the researchers' pursuit, and Bachkovo — the second-largest in Bulgaria — figures among the sacred sites where hidden documents about Vlad's tomb have been preserved by monks who may or may not be complicit in the centuries-long concealment. The narrator, traveling through Bulgaria in the 1970s, experiences the monasteries as places of deep, unsettling duality: outwardly holy and serene, potentially harboring something ancient and malevolent in their deepest archives.
Bachkovo Monastery was founded in 1083 by Georgian military commander Grigorius Bakuriani and is one of the oldest monasteries in the Balkans. Its ossuary chapel, containing skulls and bones of former monks, dates from the 12th century and is one of the best-preserved Byzantine monuments in Bulgaria.
Bachkovo Monastery is an active Orthodox monastery in the Rhodope Mountains and is open to visitors year-round. It is particularly known for its icon of the Virgin Mary, which draws pilgrims from across Bulgaria, and its 17th-century frescoes by the master painter Zahari Zograf.
Visit: Bachkovo Monastery (historic site)
Plovdiv, Bulgaria — The narrator's pursuit through the Balkans
The narrator, piecing together her father's old trail from letters and a growing sense of supernatural pursuit, passes through Plovdiv as she crosses Bulgaria. The city's ancient hill district — one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Europe — resonates with the novel's temporal layering. Kostova's prose lingers on the sensation of walking through cities where Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Communist-era structures coexist, suggesting that the past is never truly buried — exactly the argument that Dracula's immortal existence makes in the novel.
Plovdiv is one of the oldest cities in Europe, continuously inhabited for over 8,000 years. Known as Philippopolis under the Romans, it served as a major city under Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman rule. Its Old Town district contains remarkable 19th-century National Revival architecture alongside Roman ruins.
Plovdiv's Old Town is a major tourist destination and was named European Capital of Culture in 2019. The ancient Roman amphitheater, still used for concerts and events, and the cobblestoned Kapana arts district make it one of Bulgaria's most compelling cities to visit.
Visit: Plovdiv Old Town (historic site)
Broad Street, Oxford — The scholarly origins of the quest
The novel's chain of scholar-investigators — each receiving the mysterious dragon-stamped book and the letters addressed to 'My dear and unfortunate successor' — moves through the great research libraries of the Western world. The Bodleian, among the most storied of these, represents the starting point of academic inquiry into Vlad's history: the world of learned footnotes and dusty stacks where Professor Rossi first began his research before it took on a terrifying life of its own. The gap between scholarly detachment and genuine supernatural danger is dramatized by the contrast between the library's serene calm and what awaits those who follow the research too far.
The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, with roots going back to the 14th century and its formal establishment in 1602 under Sir Thomas Bodley. It is the main research library of the University of Oxford and one of the six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom, holding over 13 million items.
The Bodleian Library is open to researchers with a reader's card and also offers guided tours of its historic spaces, including the magnificent Duke Humfrey's Library dating from 1488. The Weston Library, a modern addition, hosts public exhibitions drawn from the Bodleian's collections.
Visit: Bodleian Libraries (library)
Curtea de Argeș, Wallachia, Romania — Royal tombs of Wallachia
The Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș sits in the heart of medieval Wallachia, the territory Vlad the Impaler ruled, and serves as a touchstone for the novel's exploration of Romanian medieval history. The historians trace records here in their effort to understand the royal lineages and religious institutions that Vlad both controlled and brutalized. The cathedral's layers of history — from early Wallachian principality to Romanian royal burial place — embody the novel's argument that the past is always present, sometimes dangerously so.
The Episcopal Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș was built between 1512 and 1517 by Wallachian prince Neagoe Basarab and is one of the most important examples of Byzantine-influenced Romanian architecture. It served as the coronation church and burial site for Romanian kings, including Carol I and Ferdinand I.
Curtea de Argeș Cathedral remains an active Orthodox church and is one of Romania's most important religious monuments. It is open to visitors and continues to serve as the burial church of the Romanian royal family. The town of Curtea de Argeș, the first capital of Wallachia, also contains the ruins of a 14th-century royal court.
Visit: Curtea de Argeș Cathedral (historic site)
Eminönü, Istanbul — Antiquarian bookshops and hidden clues
Istanbul's labyrinthine market districts, including the Egyptian Spice Bazaar and the antiquarian booksellers of Sahaflar Çarşısı nearby, are where Paul and later the narrator seek out rare documents and unusual books that might shed light on the dragon-stamped volume at the center of the mystery. Kostova renders Istanbul as a city where extraordinary things — a 15th-century document in a bookseller's pile, a man who seems to know too much about your research — are always just around the corner, making the city itself feel complicit in the centuries-old conspiracy.
The Mısır Çarşısı (Egyptian Bazaar) was built in 1660 as part of the New Mosque complex, financed by customs revenues from Egypt. The adjacent Sahaflar Çarşısı, the used and antiquarian book market, has existed since Byzantine times and was a center of Ottoman intellectual life for centuries.
The Egyptian Spice Bazaar remains a vibrant market selling spices, dried fruits, and Turkish delights. The Sahaflar Çarşısı book market continues to operate behind the Grand Bazaar and sells everything from university textbooks to genuine Ottoman-era manuscripts and prints, much as it did in Kostova's novel.
Visit: Sahaflar Çarşısı (Book Bazaar) (landmark)
More by Elizabeth Kostova: All Elizabeth Kostova books