Hockley Heights Gazette

Hello from Kym.....a few comments on our recent jaunt around this most interesting country.

Firstly I would like to discourage anyone from taking a ludicrously early flight....having to be up at the crazy hour of 2am (and because of daylight savings it was really 1am!) is ridiculous!
And I would definitely recommend Gatwick to Heathrow, much easier in all respects.

We landed at Bucharest at 11.45am local time on Sunday 30th March and luckily Anthony had befriended on the plane a local bloke named Van who guided us through the transport system along with suitable warnings about the pick pocket friendly locals...or in his words 'my countrymen have ludicrous behaviour'!

There were certainly some oddball characters to be seen at Gara De Nord (train station) in our couple of hour waiting until leaving on our 2.5 hour trip north to Brasov. During the trip we travelled through the dilapidated parts of Bucharest and through flat country which was littered with refuse and shanty town dwellings on mud flats. We then climbed higher into the Carpathian mountains with snow capped peaks. Although we kept our eyes open we did not see any bears, wolves or vampires, but we did see plenty of horses, carts and gypsies.

After we had been picked up by Damian and taken to the apartment, and ventured into the historic part of Brasov, we found a Chinese restaurant for a well deserved meal after 16 hours of travelling! Monday we slept until late and bought supplies for the apartment with the required nodding and pointing. We found the language has a significant amount of French, German and Italian influence due to its most interesting history. It is worth reading up on the origins of Romanians as they have such a colourful past.

Tuesday we headed to Bran castle which was very picturesque and is a national monument and landmark in Romania. The fortress is situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. Commonly known as "Dracula's Castle", it is marketed as the home of the titular character in Bram Stoker's Dracula, which has led to persistent myths that it was once the home of Vlad Tepes, ruler of Wallachia. The castle is now a museum open to tourists, displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie and family in the 1950s. The markets at the bottom of the castle were so cheap and full of 'Dracula' paraphernalia but good value for a little while.

Wednesday we got a train for a couple of hours north to Sighisoara to see the 13th century citadel and beautiful architecture. That was a busy day.

Thursday up the snow for the boys to do a little bit of skiing, then off to dinner again. Interestingly the menu at the local restaurant featured 'Fried Crap' to much hilarity of the family but amazingly there were no takers! We found the food was very bland and there were very few spices available to buy in the shops either. I think my favourite dish was the Transylvanian sour pork soup, very yummy!

Friday was rest day so we did some sight seeing around Brasov which included a cable car trip up the mountain Tampa and a walk around the city fortress walls that in days gone by have protected the city from many invaders including the Turks, the Saxons, the Romans...

Saturday we took the train back to Bucharest to find our apartment in the university section of town very close to University square () where students sacrificed their lives in 1989 to bring down Nicolae Ceauşescu.

There we were met by the two Andies, our tour guides for the next 6 hours walking tour of Bucharest. We came away with a very different view of Bucharest after our walking tour as we were taken through the historical sections of town, we saw beautiful churches, parks and museums......a great contrast to the swathes of city blocks that are still in varying stages of disrepair that we witnessed on our trip into Bucharest a week earlier.

Cheers for now, Kym