Up early for a tour to a castle. Caught a couple of local buses to get to Bran Castle which is commonly known as Dracula's castle - this was more like a castle! It was quite interesting and related to the Romanian Royal Family. Vlad the Impailer - who many people connected to Dracular - had stayed there on a number of occasions and there was quite a lot of information about him and about the author who wrote the ‘Dracula” novel. It was quite eerie with low cloud moving like whisps of smoke through the trees.
Caught the local bus to a fortified town at Rasnov. It was Saxon and inside the walls really reminded me of old English cottages.
1st July
6:30am start to the railway station to get the train to Bucharest. We arrived three hours later and then caught the Metro to the area we are staying in. The trains here put ours to shame - they are prompt, clean and with plenty of room.
We are staying near a park and ventured into to it’s open air restaurant. It was very pleasant and cool - such a change in the weather as yesterday we were really cold. After lunch took a ‘Hop on, hop off bus which at $8 we thought was good value. It was interesting to see the city - it is so run down but the parks are very nice!
Palace of Parliament is second to the Pentagon in size and 90 000 homes were destroyed to build it. It now only uses a few of the 6000 rooms and Parliament sit there. It was one of Ceausescu's 'little' projects!
In the evening we went to a Beer restaurant which was in a very interesting building and had actually been a restaurant since 1889 - it looked as if it had been a church but it never had. It was a very popular place and there were queues of people. Food and beer was good. Wandered through the old town and saw an outdoor acting performance before going to buy gelato and people watching.
2nd July
Early start with a walking tour of the old part of Bucharest. We had a really good guide who gave us lots of interesting information about Romania’s past. We then got on the train for a 6 hour trip to Bulgaria. Had the usual two stops for passport control on the way
It is hot and sunny and the fields are full of sunflowers and wheat and we’re back in the mountains. A 20 minute taxi ride bought us to the fortified town of Veliko Tarnova - often referred to as the ‘City of the Tsars’. This is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria.
All went to a local restaurant where the meals were huge and very reasonably priced.
3rd July
Had a look around the town which reminds me of alpine Switzerland but also the Italy with its houses set into the mountain side. The wall of the fort are clearly seen and like ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ we were out in the midday sun visiting the fort. Then spent time walking back uphill via souvenir shops to the hotel.
Interesting bathrooms here with showers but no curtain so everything gets wet. I put a towel down as a mat but only succeeded in building myself a dam!
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