Bucharest and Count Dracula's territory in Transylavania. A stormy week

 Monday 10^th June

We were very pleased to meet Cathy and Martin in the morning and to share a cup of coffee with them whilst they had breakfast.  It seemed that we were in agreement of how we wanted the next few days to pan out. We both wanted to see the main sights in Bucharest and then head off into the Romanian countryside especially Transylvania. Martin was very keen to obtain a cloak before he set foot in Count Dracula’s country, Cathy just told him to eat garlic. Mike and I had been a bit concerned about them paying for accommodation again as they had already booked a week in a hotel in Bucharest and now we were planning to spend 2 or 3 nights away but they seemed keen with the idea so we set off of for the first part of our itinerary - to visit the City.

It was a lovely morning and as we walked through the leafy suburbs there was a very strong pleasant smell from the lime blossom. We passed some large private villas on the edge of Herasau Park before reaching the Arc de Triumph which commemorated Romania’s participation with the Allied Forces in WW1.  From here we got on a Metro into the City Centre marked by the university buildings. We wandered around the historic centre  which like so many City Centres was filled with bars and cafes.  It was now very hot and walking was a little uncomfortable as we made our way through the Piata Universitatii. This was the scene of violent clashes between students and miners (brought in by President Iliescu to ‘restore order’) in 1990.

As it was so hot we kept stopping off for refreshments but we eventually made it to the Palace of Parliament.  This is the world’s 2^nd largest administration building (after the Pentagon). The building was built in 1984 (but is still unfinished). It has 12 storeys and 3,100 rooms and cost an estimated 3.3 billion. It remains one of Ceausescu’s white elephants.  In front of this is the B-dul Uniril.  Ceausescu destroyed many historic buildings to create this Romanian ‘Champs- Elysees’.  It was deliberately built 6m longer than its Paris equivalent but today the fountains were not playing.  Hot and tired we walked back to the Piata Unversitatii to get the metro back to the Hotel.  That night we went to the ‘Happy Bar’ which had a whole menu of bottled beers to choose from.  We sampled a few between us and then headed off to a Romanian restaurant for a meal.

 Tuesday 11^th June. Transylavania.

We were up early and soon on the road north to Transylvania.  Our first stop was at Sinaia. This is a pretty town set in the Bucegi mountains. King Carol 1 built his summer residence here in 1870 known as Peles Castle. We parked at the train station where Martin had seen a sign referring to a model railway museum (which we didn’t have time to go into).  We decided to take a taxi up to the castle (cost 10 Lei = £2) and then walk down through the town. It was a beautiful walk up, very leafy, lots of bird song and pleasant smells.  The meadow surrounding the castle was being hand scythed. It looked hard work but the men were very efficient in cutting the meadow down. The castle was really picturesque and there were lots of photo opportunities. From here we continued our pleasant wooded walk down, crossing a stream to make our way towards the monastery and down to the town centre.  Here we picked up some supplies for lunch and stopped off for a drink. We stayed in the bar longer than expected  as the skies suddenly darkened and unleashed a load of rain.

Back in the van (or TIN as Martin had christened it) we set off for Bran. This town is famous for ‘Dracula’s Castle’ but historically there only appear to be tentative links between Vlad Dracula –the impaler and the castle. Vlad Dracula earnt his nick name from his preferred torture method which was to push a spear up his prisoners’ backsides – they  slowly bled to death.

We spent a good hour in the castle and again it was raining when we left so once again we sheltered in a bar.  Cathy and Martin chose a nice hotel to stay in whilst we went off to look for some water to fill up our van. The hotel had a large car park where we were allowed to stay FOC but unfortunately there was no bath in Cathy’s room for Mike to use.  The hotel restaurant looked a bit soulless so we hopped over the road to a smaller restaurant where we had an excellent meal.  I finished mine with the local fire water known as Palinca  a clear brandy made from plums.

Wednesday 12^th Jun

Cathy and Martin went for a run in the morning so it was shortly after 10am when we left Bran. We drove through Rasnov and stopped in Brasnov. Brasnov was fairly easy to find as on the surrounding Mt Tample there was a Hollywood style sign proclaiming the existence of Brasnov. It turned out to be a lovely picturesque town full of baroque style buildings.  We parked and walked down to Piata Sfatuliu the main square.  From there we were able to see the gothic black church (Biserica Negra) and then walked through the town and up the hill on the other side to the fortress which gave us lovely views of the old city and contrasting views of the tower blocks in the modern part of the City. Under the communist regime it had been policy to move people in from the villages for work (and control?) and to house them in monolithic blocks.

Walking back to the van I stopped off at a baker’s shop with Martin and we chose some cream cakes to celebrate Mike’s birthday with on the 13^{th .}  All back in the van we paid our parking fee and headed off to Sighisoara where Vlad Dracula was born.

The route was very interesting.  It was a very rural landscape.  We saw many Roma’s travelling in their horse and carts, working in the fields, selling huge wild mushrooms (mainly boletus) or the cherries that were plentiful at this time. I loved the small handmade haystacks that were busily being prepared.

Sighisoara was delightful.  The focus of the old town was a large square set up on the hillside. All around this area were various towers which were built and maintained by the City Guilds that controlled the ‘free town’ in the 14^th Century. The main tower was the Clock Tower but we enjoyed walking around them all. The City became quite wealthy through trading with the adjacent regions of Moldavia and Wallachia. Vlad Dracula’s house was now a restaurant and apart from the tourist tack there was not much to show that the Dracula had lived here.  Cathy and Martin chose a nice hotel to stay in right on the main square. We tried to persuade Mike to stay for one night too so that he had a bit of luxury for his birthday but he would not accept the offer (although he did have a bath in their room later that night!).

I chose a pizza restaurant to go out to that evening. Although the food was ok the service was pretty terrible and poor Cathy had to wait another 20 minutes for her meal after ours had arrived. We paid and left and went back to their hotel where the service was of a much better quality. Here we all had icecreams and a nightcap. Mike and I left them to their luxury and walked back down to Buster who was patiently waiting for us parked in the road and where we slept that night.

 Thursday 13^th June Sibiu

Cathy and Martin went running again in the morning after another heavy shower finished and that was the end of the rain for today. We left about 10.30am and started the long drive back to Bucharest via Sibiu. Sibiu was one of the Saxon’s main towns and the town still retains strong links with Germany. It was very hot when we arrived and we had a very gentle walk around the three main squares stopping at the first for some lunch.

 As Mike and I walked over the Liar’s bridge – so called because of the legend that no one can stand on it and tell a lie without the bridge collapsing (Ceausescu did stand here to deliver a speech but he did not like the city and never returned)  we met a charming 82 year old woman. She was so interesting as she told us how she had lived here as a child before moving to Germany in 1941. Due to the iron curtain she was not allowed to return with her family until 1959 and that was with the aid of Switzerland. She told us how all the local people met them on arrival to hear what it was like outside of Romania. She now lives in Germany but has a small house outside of Sibiu which she returns to when she can. She told us a lot of interesting things about the town and showed us where to go. She also told us that she had lived in England for two years including one as a German teacher. Her English remained so good even though she said she had little opportunity to practise it now.  It is meeting people like her that has made our trip so interesting. 

From Sibiu it was a long haul back to Bucharest. We stopped off for tea and cakes in the scorching sun to celebrate Mike’s birthday and arrived back in the City for 8.30pm.  No one really had any appetite for any sort of birthday meal so we went back to the Happy Bar for a beer or two and then onto a small café where we had an evening snack.  Once again we were sleeping on the road outside the hotel and although not ideal we felt fortunate that we had found somewhere we could park in Bucharest as it is so full of cars.

Friday 14^th June Bucharest

It was Cathy and Martin’s last day with us.  We had a later start and around 11am we headed off to try and find a local market for Martin. We failed but we did find a supermarket so Mike and I stocked up on bits and pieces.  We then walked back to the historic centre (it seemed further away today in the heat) where Cathy and Martin treated us to lunch. Time was running out so we got a taxi back to the Hotel to pick up the van so that we could take C & M to the airport. We dropped them off at 4pm and then decided to start our journey to Hungary and Budapest. The first part of the journey to Pitesti required us to repeat yesterday’s journey but the trip was made more exciting by the darkening skies and lightning flashes signalling trouble ahead.  We hit the storm (actually it hit us) at Slatina.  It was a terrific one. Lightening, thunder, heavy rain and then hail pounded the van.  This was followed by flash flooding and we found ourselves attempting to drive through 4-6 inches of water.  A couple of times we had to pull up as the visibility had dropped to zero but Mike would not stop for any extended periods and gamely pushed on. We eventually pulled off the road 4 hours from Bucharest, just past Filiasi where we had a late supper and went to bed.