The real Nevermore Academy: my gothic pilgrimage to the set of Netflix’s Wednesday in Romania

‘Wow, it’s … it’s Nevermore Academy!” There are delighted gasps from younger members of my tour group as we enter the TV set courtyard at Bucharest Film Studio, known as Buftea, after the small town it’s in, just outside the Romanian capital.

“They don’t listen to my educational stuff,” sighs our guide. “They just want to see the Wednesday sets.” Under gothic-looking stone arches built for Netflix’s smash hit series, it’s selfie-geddon.

Since the show’s release last November TV tourism has, to borrow the name of Wednesday Addams’ scuttling sidekick, become a “Thing” in Romania. Much of the series, partly directed by Tim Burton and starring Jenna Ortega as the titular teen, was filmed here, utilising its abundance of gothic mansions plus the Buftea facilities.

Expedia reported a 55% increase in searches for Bucharest hotels around the show’s release. Buftea, which as well as Nevermore (a kind of emo Hogwarts) hosts the show’s Pilgrim World amusement park and Jericho town sets, has started marketing its studio tours at families and individuals rather than school parties, as demand has risen. Since filming location guides appeared online, fans have doorstepped buildings used in the series, peering expectantly through stained-glass windows.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula came from Romania, and castles tenuously linked to the Transylvanian vampire have dominated tourism here for decades. Now a younger, gothy fictional icon, with an even more withering demeanour, is drawing a new crowd.

I start my Wednesday pilgrimage with the tour at Buftea, where it becomes clear how deeply the series resonates with children. In front of the Jericho set bandstand, a boy of about six is writhing on the grass, shouting in an American accent (spoiler alert): “I’m the mayor! I just got run over!” Nearby a girl is diligently sketching the exterior of the Weathervane cafe.

From Harry Potter tours in London to chasing locations seen in The Beach in Thailand, “set-jetting” isn’t a new phenomenon, but this fervent level of telly interest is completely new to Romania.

“Even within the country, a lot of people forgot that Buftea exists,” says Gabriel Gheorgiu, a tour leader at the studio, which is usually used for adverts and reality shows rather than iconic series. “This shows the world that Romania is not just a poor country ruled by communism for a long time. Everything here was built by Romanians. It makes me proud.”

In Bucharest I chat with a man running a burger van outside Palatul Monteoru, an 1874 stone building with pillared front that was once headquarters of the Writers’ Union of Romania. He says at least three or four groups of Wednesday fans arrive every day, trying to see inside. It was used for scenes such as Wednesday’s staircase descent to Nevermore’s Raven ball.

On Fridays and Saturdays, Palatul Monteoru becomes the Gradina Monteoru nightclub, so members of the public can attempt to throw some shapes similar to Wednesday’s, albeit to techno rather than the Cramps. Nearby is the French neo-gothic Casa Niculescu-Dorobantu, also used for interior scenes: it’s more dramatic than Palatul Monteoru, with stone griffins leering from its rooftop. Wealthy prospective buyers might be allowed inside – it’s on sale for €4.5m.

The building used for Nevermore’s main exterior is more actively embracing Wednesday tourism. Cantacuzino castle, about 90 miles north of Bucharest, has boards around the grounds detailing various filming locations, mannequins dressed as characters, and runs a Wednesday cosplay competition.

The castle says visitor numbers “more than doubled” after Wednesday’s release. While I’m there, busloads of schoolchildren arrive, passing under a black sign reading: “Welcome to the filming place of Wednesday.” Fans from as far as Taiwan and China have visited Cantacuzino, which normally struggles in the shadow of nearby Bran castle, marketed as “Dracula’s castle”.

Kurt Neuschitzer, Cantacuzino castle’s owner, says Wednesday has had an “unbelievable positive effect in terms of tourism advertising for the entire [of] Romania. We are, of course, hoping the second season will be filmed again here, at the Nevermore Academy, as it would highlight Romania and Prahova county on eastern Europe’s tourism map.”

I’m joined at Cantacuzino by Alina Baidoc, co-founder of tour company Authentic Romania, who is also pleased about the boost. She recently announced a Following Wednesday tour in response to interest from across Europe and the US.

For Baidoc, Dracula and Wednesday both offer a chance to enhance her country’s image as well as its economy. “People often don’t regard Romania as safe,” she says. “We’ve had German travellers whose families told them they will get robbed. But they’re impressed to see it’s a beautiful country.”

Nearby is Sinaia railway station, used as a set for Jericho town, which Ortega jokingly said appeared “Photoshopped” because it was already so beguilingly Burton-esque. Back in Bucharest, I take a dip at Bucharest’s huge Dinamo swimming pool, honoured to visit the water where Wednesday unleashed a school of piranhas.

But it’s at Bucharest Botanical Garden that I feel most transported to Wednesday’s world. The show’s greenhouse scenes look humidly beautiful, and the venue doesn’t disappoint. I walk among bulbous cacti and greenery tangled around staircases spiralling towards sun-shot ceilings. Beyond the flora, the fauna seem to get the spooky nature of my assignment: a black cat brushes against my leg before stalking a black bird flitting around a window.

The greenhouse room where Wednesday’s horticulture classes were filmed is officially closed to visitors, but I sneak in through a staff entrance. Horticultural engineer Maria Raicu tells me this room was designed by Belgian architect Louis Fuchs around 1890, so the roof is considered too unstable for public access. She adds that when filming here, Tim Burton was a “gentleman” and “very organised”.

Raicu isn’t sure if he’ll return to Romania, though. A second Wednesday series is confirmed, but there are rumours that it may be filmed elsewhere, because Romanian companies allegedly ripped the crew off for things such as camera hire.

Even if that happens, with Buftea having no plans to dismantle the sets and fans continuing to arrive, the jet-black shot Wednesday injected into the arm of Romania’s tourist scene won’t wear off quickly.