Yesterday I took a walking tour of Brasov. I learned a few things:
- German colonists known as Saxons we're invited to develop Brasov, and that is why the town is German in nature, complete with a huge Luthern cathedral(the religion in the Balkans is mainly Christian Orthodox or Islam), which is called the Black Church.
- The city is at the center of a trade route of Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
- The black church is named so because in a huge fire when most of the church and town burnt down in the 1600's, Most of the church was destroyed-but a huge painting of the Virgin Mary wasn't-but her dress turned black, which I believe was meant to show sorry for the victims.
The tour was interesting, and being that it was a crisp, sunny, beautiful fall day, it was great to walk around. I don't think I liked the people on the tour-they didn't seem to want to talk to me. One was a Romanian couple who seemed to make fun of me because of all the questions I asked. Another was some happy-go-lucky skinny girl from Alaska with all sort of odd looking freckles, who bragged she was a biologist and hiked all over.
After the tour, I walked around the some of the gates of the old city where the tour ended, and then walked to the Black Church to take a look inside-it was a beautiful church, and it looked like it was lifted out of Germany or Spain and put in Romania.
I then took the cable car to the top of the mountain, by the Brasov sign, and walked down in the slippery, muddy path (I had my sandals on, but I didn't trip this time)
I then went back to the hostel and took a nap. When I awoke, it was dark out, so I walked up to the fort to get a night view of the city.
Afterwards, I went back to the hostel and played some late drinking games with people from the hostel, including with one girl who I felt didn't like me because I was older.
