We arrived in Romania via a sleeper train from Budapest to Brasov. While it was not cheap at 65 euro per person, the four of us (Josh, Kan, Leah and I) had a good sleep in our own private compartment. We arrived in Brasov at about 10 am and were met by Dan, our obliging airbnb host.
We had a quick tour of the apartment then headed out to explore and grab some lunch. We soon realised that there wasn't really much in walking distance from the apartment but found a nice little local restaurant and were delighted by the prices. I had the set menu, which was a sour vegetable soup, meatballs and mashed potato and an apple pie for desert, all for 15 lei, or AUD $5. We decided sightseeing was too much hard work so headed back to the apartment and spent the afternoon and evening relaxing and enjoying the mountain views from the balcony.
The next morning we went our seperate ways. Kan and Leah hired our AirBnb host as a private driver for the day but we preferred to go the cheaper option with public buses. We caught a bus out to visit Bran castle, also known as Dracula's castle because of its links with Vlad the Impaler. We walked the streets surrounding the castle for a while checking out all the cafe's and souvenir markets. The locals are really trying to milk this whole Dracula myth for all it's worth with their mugs, t shirts, masks, keyrings, bottle openers, magnets and anything else they can possibly fit a Dracula face on. We may or may not have bought a Dracula magnet...... I'm so ashamed..... It was a really picturesque castle, with its fairytale turrents and its location overlooking hills, villages and pine forests. Inside it was decked out with antiques from lots of different eras. There was also a bunch of portraits, weapons, armour, torture devices and all the other cool stuff that you would hope to find in a castle. As the day went on the passageways seemed to get narrower and narrower as the number of tourists grew and grew. Luckily we had almost finished by the apparant "peak" tourist time and found our way back out to fresh air. We spent some more time exploring the gardens around the castle and made our way to where we hoped the bus was coming back to.
On the way home we stopped in cute little Rasnov, and visited a fortress high on the hill there. We were struck by how stuck in the nineties eastern Europe still is in some ways when we saw them selling mood rings, chokers that look like patterned tattoos and those gunpowder balls. Not to mention the nineties music that is played everywhere - it seems boy bands are back! After exploring the fort we were a little early for our bus back to Brasov so we stopped for a beer in what seemed like a nice little quiet cafe. The owner must have thought we looked like the type of people who enjoy a good rave because as soon as our drinks were brought out the speakers behind us exploded with what I assume was some kind of music. It was one of those songs that just repeats itself over and over and never seems to end. We didn't order a second beer....
A trip to Brasov wouldn't be complete without time spent in the old town, so we made sure to enjoy some time there, wandering the cobbled streets, watching traditional dancing in the town square, eating outside in the many cafes that line the streets and taking in sights like the Black Church and the watch towers with their excellent views. We also caught a public bus out to Poiana Brasov, a nearby ski town with pine forests where we intended to do some hiking. We accidentally stopped at a cafe and bought a beer, and then another. Before we knew it we didn't really feel like hiking anymore so we went to a different restaurant for hamburgers and more beer. On the way back to the bus we took a 5 minute detour through some pine forest so we could tell ourselves we had done some hiking.
Our next stop in Romania was medieval Sighisoara, Dracula's birthplace. We loved this little town and started our time here with a goodbye lunch with Kan and Leah at Casa Dracula, the house that Vlad was brought up in. We both enjoyed some Romanian food, Josh with a big soup inside a loaf of crusty bread and me with minced meat inside cabbage leaves with polenta and a sauce of sour cream (sarmale). After lunch Josh quickly raced off to go listen to the Crows game while I spent the afternoon with the girls before their train to Bucharest. We had 3 nights here and spent our time wandering through the citadel, another old town inside protective stone walls complete with churches, watch towers, a bell tower, museums, cafes and souvenir shops. It was a beautiful town with the friendliest people we had come across so far in Eastern Europe. I don't think we got yelled at once! Win! We didn't really need three days here but enjoyed the chance to relax and for Josh, the chance to recover from a dose of the man flu.
Our train from Sighisoara to Bucharest was pretty much what you'd expect from the stereotypical eastern European train - delayed by 2 hours, graffitied and with a cracked windscreen. But it got us there safely and after checking into our hostel we did our own evening walking tour of the city, taking in the sights of the old town (which wasn't nearly as old as in other places and was much more grand) and enjoying the happening cafe vibe, even on a weeknight. Like lots of eastern European cities, the city centre was really nice and well preserved, but walk a little bit further and you'll be surrounded by Soviet style buildings. The main highlight for us here was a tour of the extravagant Palace of the Parliament, the world's second biggest building in volume, after the Pentagon. We found one night here to be enough.
So Romania, and Transylvania in particular, proved to be a dreamy place steeped in history and natural beauty and well worth traveling through. With its cheap prices, we could afford to eat out and enjoy more of the wonderful food it had on offer, which made a nice change from cereal, 2 minute soups and vegemite sandwiches!
