Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010
The Misty Mountains
Location: The Carpathian Mountains, Eastern Europe
The Carpathian mountain range is one of Europe's longest, winding its way from Poland down into Romania. The mountains have the same jagged, brooding character of Tolkien's Misty Mountains — the site of the abandoned dwarf city of Moria seen in the first Lord of the Rings film. The Misty Mountains are also where Bilbo and his cohort get captured by goblins in The Hobbit; their escape leads Bilbo to that pitiable creature Gollum, keeper of the Ring of Power, an object of unfathomable evil. And in the shadow of the Carpathians lies Transylvania, fabled domain of perhaps humanity's most eerie and menacing abomination: Dracula.