Peles Castle near Sinaia, Romania

When we arrived at the Bucharest airport, the cold air was a nice change from Turkey. Morgan and I have not had really cold weather in over a year; we have been in summer everywhere we have gone. We took a local bus from the airport into town, and we bought one ticket with two bus rides on it. Well for some reason the ticket only validated for one use. When we arrived at the end of the line, two guys hopped on the bus and started checking people’s tickets. Basically, they were undercover ticket cops. They approached us, and said only one of the tickets validated. We were kind of taken back, and explained the situation. They then proceeded to take Morgan’s passport and questioned us off the bus at the train station. Long story short, we had to pay a $15 fine to these guys. We had heard about scams where people pretend to be cops and take your passports, but these guys turned out to be legitimate. We were very wary there for a minute, but the situation could have been a lot worse. Our hotel in Bucharest was nice, and we arrived on Sunday which meant all the restaurants were closed. They are devote Catholics here, which means no working on Sunday, so we opted to cook in that night. We also found our new favorite thing…. 2.5 liter beers in a bottle. They cost $2 for one, and we drank way too many in Romania. We figured that they did not have much to do in the winter except drink and eat. The next morning we walked all around Bucharest and took in the sites. We made the decision to only spend the day there, and take an evening train to the next town. We left our bags at the hotel, and explored for the day. We walked around for hours, and could not find hardly any restaurants to eat at. There was basically one street that had a few sit down places, but literally there was nowhere to eat. Occasionally, we saw a kebab place, but we had our fill of that in Turkey. We believe that this culture just eats at home more often. The restaurants that we did see, no one seemed to be eating, just drinking coffee or beer. After touring the city, we took a 3 hour train to the small mountain town of Sinaia.

Sinaia was tucked in the Carpathian Mountains, and is home to a large monastery, as well as Peles and Pelisor Castles. We arrived in the dark, and took a taxi to this hotel in the mountains, Villa Acvilla. We were the only ones staying there that night, and the owner lived off-site. The first thought that came to mind was The Shining. It looked exactly like the house, but of course much smaller. We definitely kept the door locked that night. The next day, we walked around the castles in town, and got rained on most of the morning. We saw everything we wanted to see, and took a 12 PM train to the next town of Sighisoara. The train was full of gypsies who smoked the whole time, and never bought tickets for the train. They were fun to watch, and are crafty little people, hiding in the bathrooms and stealing food. One could see the grief on the conductors face as he had to deal with all of them. This was by far our favorite town in all of Romania. Casa Soare was an amazing guesthouse with a very helpful owner. She let us choose our room, and we got a huge room with a fireplace, balcony, dining room, the works. The best part is it only cost $20 a night. We explored Sighisoara for two days, and visited all the historical sites: clock tower, Dracula’s house, Church on the Hill, etc. Every town in Romania had a citadel and an old quarter.  They were always surrounded by a brick wall, and had old watch towers. The second day we were here, we had a taxi drop us off in the mountains down an old gravel road. Caroline had read there were a lot of good hiking trails, and we decided to hike for the day outside of the city. The cab driver was skeptical when he dropped us off, and we got his number in case we had any problems. The forest was beautiful, and had well-marked trails. We spent about 5 hours there hiking around, and were the only ones on site. We did see warning signs for bears, but luckily saw none. We also had some nice meals in this town, and the prices were all very cheap. Just with any Eastern European country, meat, potatoes, and cabbage are a staple. Don’t expect a lot of fresh vegetables.

After leaving Sighisoara, Caroline took a train to Bucharest where she flew on to Croatia. Morgan and I took a train to Brasov for two nights. Here, we visited Bran Castle, which is the castle pictured in all the Dracula movies. We got to tour the castle, and the headed to the old quarter where we saw the Black Church and Council Square. After leaving Brasov, we just stayed in one smaller town called Sibiu. We only stayed one night here, and just had a good time seeing all the old historical buildings. From Sibiu, we took a 10 hour train ride to Budapest, Hungary. We will spend 10 days in Hungary before flying back to Italy.

We spent most of our time in the Transylvania region of Romania. This area steeped in legends of vampires and folklore. I thought I would share a side note about Dracula, which we learned while being here. Dracula is not a real person, but was based on the man named Vlad Tepes. Vlad was a warrior in the 1400’s in Romania who fought against the Ottoman Empire. He got the nickname “Vlad the Impaler” because he would impale his victims on stakes when in battle. There was an Irish author named Bram Stoker who was very interested in the region of Transylvania. He studied this area, and discovered Vlad Tepes. In the 1800’s he wrote a book about Vlad, and changed his name to Dracula. Vlad’s father was named Vlad Dracul, and he was part of the knight’s order. Dracul basically means “dragon.” Therefore, Bram wrote the novel Dracula, and embellished it based up the life of Vlad Tepes.  Vlad never sucked anyone’s blood, nor did he live in a coffin. There is your history lesson for the day.

Cheers,

Morgan and David