Wednesday in Transylvania: A Story Only This Land Could Tell

There’s something about Transylvania that you can’t quite capture in a photograph or even in words. The mountains stand heavy with shadow, as though they’ve been keeping watch for centuries. Forests stretch deep and dark, with paths that feel like they’ve been walked a thousand times before you ever set foot there. The castles rise out of the landscape like stone guardians, carrying both history and legend in their bones.

It’s no wonder this land has been woven into stories for generations. Transylvania doesn’t need to be dressed up as mysterious—it simply is.

So when Netflix chose Romania as the backdrop for Wednesday, it felt less like a decision and more like recognition. Of course this is where Nevermore Academy belongs. Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni, with its looming presence and Brâncovenesc-gothic architecture, doesn’t need to pretend to be gothic—it already is. Its exterior became the face of Nevermore Academy, and watching it on screen feels like watching the castle play itself.

The interiors of Nevermore weren’t created from nothing either. They were filmed in Bucharest, in houses with their own layered histories—Casa Niculescu-Dorobantu and Casa Monteoru. Even the greenhouse scenes came alive in Bucharest’s Botanical Garden. The small town of Jericho, so central to the story, was constructed at Buftea Studios just outside the city.

The filming stretched across Romania from September 2021 to March 2022, and everywhere the crew turned, they found a land that breathed exactly the atmosphere they needed. The forests didn’t need special effects to look haunted—they already held centuries of folklore in their silence. The mountains didn’t need tricks of the light to look foreboding—they’ve been carrying that mood for generations.

Watching the series, I felt a mix of pride and delight. It wasn’t that the cameras made Romania look magical. It was that, finally, the rest of the world was seeing what’s here every day. The mood, the weight of history, the whisper of old stories carried on the wind—this is what makes Transylvania more than just a backdrop. It makes it a character in its own right.

And this is why Romania is worth visiting. Yes, there are the famous sights: Bran Castle, Sighișoara’s medieval streets, Brașov’s gothic spires. But there are also these layered corners of mystery and history that now live on in Wednesday. You can walk through the halls of Cantacuzino Castle, wander the forests where scenes were filmed, and stand in the same squares that carried the show’s shadowy story.

Transylvania hums with lore. It invites imagination to wander. It holds space for mystery in a way few places in the world still do.

So when Wednesday brought the world’s attention here, it felt like the land itself was being seen. Not as a stand-in for somewhere else, but as itself. A place where the line between reality and story blurs so naturally that a gothic tale could only feel at home here.

For anyone dreaming of a visit—or even of building a life here—this is the magic waiting for you. To walk these forests, to stand in the shadow of these castles, is to step into a story that doesn’t end when the credits roll.

Of course Wednesday belonged in Transylvania. Where else could it possibly have been filmed?