Having arrived in Bucharest a few days ago and spent a couple of days 'settling in' I decided to make a break for the hills. I was torn between the mountains or the sea, but in the end I decided that a few days of rest by the sea would be a great way to relax at the end of this 3 week Romania trip.
I decided to phone ahead for a room in Brasov, not wanting a repeat of the room saga experienced in Sinaia. Following the 'trusty' guide book (LP) I called the dear old lady that is Magda from Beke Guest House. With a room sorted I hopped on the train for Brasov.
The room is fine , more like what i'm used to (Sinaia was a rather plush - and relatively expensive - 3 star Hotel) about 2m by 2 m and tiled. Looks a little cell like and smells slightly damp - Accompanied by slightly damp bedding. It is cheap though and it just 'feels' like i'm back travelling again rather than 'on holiday'. The only real down side with the room is that the light switch is on the outside of the room (in the corridor.) My room is also next to the shared bathroom which means that anyone heading in that direction invariably flashes my light on and off a couple of times before they realise their mistake.
I spent a very pleasant day wandering the streets of Brasov - a lot of which was actually spent sitting in the Old Town square watching the world go by (and a very nice world it is!). The evening brought a few 'acts' to the square, one of which was a musical trio of 'Native American Indians' complete with head dresses and ...flutes! Entertaining if slightly bizarre.
Day two in Brasov and I decided to head out to nearby Poiana Brasov - Romania's most popular ski resort. Once again, as expected, it is without snow at this time of year. But it is still very beatiful and I guess a whole lot more peaceful than in the height of the ski season.
I took the cable car to the top of the mountain (the easy option having already overdone the walking thing) and simply sat and enjoyed the views.
This is now my last night in Brasov. Tomorrow i'll be heading to Bran.
Bran was exactly as expected - CRAWLING with tourists and coaches from all over the place! There isn't much else in the town itself apart from the castle, but the castle here is pretty cool.
Full credit to the locals here who have marketed the castle (very sucessfully) as Draculas Castle - even though it has no connection with either the original Bram Stoker story or with Vlad 'The Impailer' Tepes. Still it definately brings in the tourists. There is every conceivable form of tourist 'tat' that you can imagine here and ABSOLUTELY every piece of Vampire/Dracula merchandise every created.
I had planned to stay at a Cabana (Cheap Chalet style accomodation) a short way out of town. However, when I finally arrived there it looked as though the place had been closed for a couple of years! The outside bar area was inhabited by several sheep and they looked quite settled in. Time for an updated guide book I think!
Wandering back into town I was approached by a 'tout' offering rooms. Sounded like a pretty good deal - Own room, hot shower, TV and pretty cheap too. I decided to go along and check it out. As it turned out the room was in a family house - it was infact their downstairs living room that he was offering and the 'bed' was the sofa. Still it was a good deal and the owner seemed very friendly. She didn't speak a word of english and i'm sure she realised that I didn't speak any Romanian, but she still insisted on talking to me. I've no idea what the conversations were about but they must have been good as she was always smiling - a very happy lady. I did my best to get the jist of things but typically did a lot of nodding and smiling. Nice house, friendly owner, big garden, two dogs and several chickens.... what more could you ask for?
Having spent a day in Bran and experienced just about as much Vampire-culture as I could manage, I decided to get away for a day and head to the hills. A couple of miles from Bran is a small village called Simon and onwards beyond this the Bucegi mountains.
It was a rather aimless wander (I'm getting quite good at these). I spent almost 9 hours walking around the mountains and although I was still having a little trouble with a sore foot managed to cover just over 20 miles. Well worth the effort, the views were superb and I saw almost nobody up there - a big difference from the day before in Bran.
The only downside of such a long walk was the fact that my 'bed' in Bran was only a 2-seater sofa and not long enough to stretch out on to rest my tired legs.
Moving on from Bran to Sighisoara the Dracula theme continues. Although this time there is a legitimate claim to fame as the 13th Citadel atop the hill at Sighisoara was birth place to Vlad 'The Imapler' Tepes. By all acounts he lived there until he was 4 years old - presumably before he started impaling people.
There's a sign on the wall nearby identifying the building where Vlad Dracul was born, but unfortunately the building is now a restaurant called 'Casa Vlad Dracul' - apparently specialising in 'bloody' steaks. I suspect the rather naff vampire sign and inflated prices is enough to put most people off.
The rest of the citadel is very oldie-worldy, one of the entrances to the citadel is through the base of a quite spectaculer 16th Century clock tower - Complete with minature figures which 'come out to play' on the hour.
My arrival at Sighisoara coincided with the annual cultural festival which was to run for 10 days. I only caught 1 day of it, but with 'acts' from Romania, Moldova, Moldavia, Albania, Croatia and surounding areas, it did appear to have a lot of potential for a collection of 'nil point' music acts with some added Oom Pah Pah and folk dancing. Not really my thing. Certainly had a very good local turn out though.
From Sighsoara I'd be heading to Cluj-Napoca
My visit to Cluj was certainly a very brief, but very memorable one. I met up with an English guy (Dave from Devon) at the train station who was also on his way to Cluj. Spent 3 hours chatting on the train and once we arrived in Cluj sorted ourselves out with the first hotel we could find.
Cluj is a reasonable size city and 'famed' for its night life. Guess our timing was pretty good as we'd arrived on a Saturday.
Most of the afternoon was spent doing the aimless wander of the city - mainly looking for food. Romania in general appears to be a country of Fast Food options and Pizza restaurants. In this case, despite our best efforts we ended up in a Fast Food shop. The up side of the lunch venue (definately not the food!) was the recommendations from the girl working in the shop. It was quite simply - "If its Saturday night, you go to Diesel."
Never has better advice been given! For anyone who has seen the Carlsberg advert for the night club - THIS is the place!
To be honest neither of us had really planned to go clubbing, we'd simply gone to have a beer (read 'several') sitting outside at the pavement cafe. We were still dressed as we'd travelled up on the train - I was in shorts and walking boots and carrying a day pack. Hardly dressed for a night out. We sat and drank beer for a while and reasoned that we obviously couldn't go clubbing as we were dressed. Looking at the stream of glamourous entrants - surely there would be a dress code.
After a couple more beers and a continual stream of STUNNING women going into the club our tune changed a little. Eventually I asked the bar staff if there was a Dress Code - yes there was. However, the second best advice of the day was "give it a try though". This we did and somehow they let us in! The place was pretty busy AND 2/3 of the venue was stunning women! A large glass of JD and a view to die for - it really doesn't get any better.
Left Cluj with a hangover, but worth the pain. Also left with a sleeper train ticket (14 hours) down to the coast for the 24th Aug.
I'll be heading north towards the Ukrainian border for a few days before coming back to Cluj for the Black Sea bound train.
Just a few pictures of the Maramures area of Romania in the far north - Only a couple of kilometers from the Ukrainian border (oh its soooo tempting just to carry on going!). Most are from the 'Merry Cemetry'. The images on the headstones depict the peoples lives (eg. Farmer or Baker or Mechanic etc.) and the text is usually a humourous outlook on how they lived or died (apparently.) The last picture is of typical wooden churches found around Maramures.
Its very much like stepping back in time - Horses and carts are common place and most people work the fields with simple hand tools.
