The idea to visit Romania was already in my mind for some years, but I never took it seriously because I had other, useless, priority destinations.
This changed the day of my birthday on December, when my girlfriend told me to check my email to get the birthday present. I was honestly thinking on Amazon cards or stuff like that. I could never think that she bought us flight tickets to Romania!
Since then, we planned the trip in the next two months, booking car, hostels, and searching for the best places to visit there.
We arrived in Bucarest on February 26th in the evening, and right after taking our room in a B&B, we went straight to dinner at one of the most famous places in the city, “Caru cu bere”.
There we ate a 2 delicious typical dishes: a meat soup and roasted meat. Everything was absolutely delicious but one should prepare his own belly: The portions are for giants!
After dinner, filled with good food, we had just the strenght to see the Stavropoleos church from the outside and get to bed.
Stavropoleos church at night
The day after we visited Bucharest historic centre, the Stavropoleos church on the inside, and the orthodox church Sfântul Anton.
We then spent the rest of the day in the Bucharest thermes relaxing, because the next morning the real journey would have begun.
After a nice and abundant breakfast, we picked the car and headed north.
Our first stop was Peleș Castle , the wonderful summer residence of the royal family. This fairytale castle was built between 1873 and 1914, inspired by Neo Renaissance and Gothic Revival style.
My advise is to go there and take the ticket to visit it on the inside, because you surely won’t be disappointed.
After Peleș Castle we headed to the village of Bran to see the namesake castle, said to be the residence of the infamous Count Dracula.
In reality the castle was just used by Vlad Ţepeş as a stronghold against Ottomans, and its worldwide fame is due to the Bram Stoker’s horror novel “Dracula”, in which the depiction of the vampire’s castle is quite similar the the castle of Bran.
On the low right the Castle of Bran. In the background the Carpathian Mountains.
At the end of the day we arrived in Brașov, the biggest Transylvanian city.
There we had a nice evening walking in the centre, having dinner in a nice and not at all crowded place.
On our fourth day in Romania, when we just entered Transylvania, we departed from Brașov heading to Sighișoara, one of the most beautiful villages in Romania.
While driving, Rossella (my girlfriend) asked me to do a deviation and to head to a little village in the middle of the countryside.
I accepted, and in 30-40 minutes we were entering in Viscri.
Viscri is a saxon medieval village, and with the adjective “medieval” I do not intend only because of its origins or constructions.
Everything there is quite medieval.: All of the houses are in the same Saxon medieval style. On the principal street there’s no asphalt, only dusty soil, while some other little roads are paved with stones.
There are very few cars, and fewer of them moving (I could say that in one hour I may have seen 2 or 3 cars going from a place to another), chickens pecking everywhere on the ground and old women washing clothes at the public fountain.
I felt we had travelled in time, entering in a medieval epoque, and the thing didn’t disappointed us, on the contrary we were very fascinated.
The main monument (aside from the village itself) is the fortified monastery. Very simple yet so nice.
We couldn’t go inside because they closed at 2 p.m and we were there at 3 p.m.
Nothing better than taking a flight then, and see the Viscri monastery from above!
While I was taking the last pictures before going to the next place, a kid got out from his home with his bike and greeted me. I greeted back, then asked for his name. He was quite excited because probably he had few possibilities to speak with strangers at all, and trying to speak english, he told me that his name was Andrei (I hope I wrote it right) and when I asked for his age, he made the “9” with his hands.
Then I asked him, with gestures, if he would have liked a pictures, and he smiled at me and waved with his head as to say “yes”.
So he posed proud with his bike aside letting me take few pictures.
Then we said goodbye to each other, and I could hear him run toward his friend telling him in romanian what had happened (I understood “english” and that he told me his name).
That’s it for the first part of this journal.
In the second part I will write about the rest of the travel, from Sighișoara to Curtea de Argeș.
Cheers!