The travels of Tim and Megan: Romania

Saturday

Our journey from Varna, Bulgaria to Brasov, Romania involved a bus-taxi-train combo. Our very friendly and helpful taxi driver who brought us across the border into Romania, risking life and limb amongst the terrible Romanian drivers, dropped us off at the Gare de Nord in Bucharest. We bought tickets on the train to Brasov and the three-hour train ride was smooth and without major incident, although there was a box full of live chickens on our carriage. Awesome.

Romania is a country in south-eastern Europe, on the Lower Danube River, bordering Hungary and Serbia to the west, Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine and Moldova to the north and east and the Black Sea coast to the east. Its population is 22 million and its capital and largest city is Bucharest with around 2 million people. Brasov is a city in the centre of Romania, about 166km north of Bucharest, in the region of Transylvania (vampire territory!!!). Brasov's population is around 300,000 people.

We arrived in Brasov around 8pm and we got a taxi into the centre of the old town, where we had booked four nights' accommodation at a place called Guesthouse Gina. This turned out to be a disaster. We were greeted by a locked door, so we phoned Gina and she made us wait 10 minutes before she turned up and informed us that we were a massive inconvenience to her, as she had been waiting all day for us to arrive, despite the email we sent her that said we would arrive about 8.30pm.

It got worse, as Gina (a crazy lady, with dozens of cats roaming her residence and bodies in her freezer, no doubt) told us that her regular guesthouse (the one we had booked weeks earlier) was fully booked and we would have to walk with our heavy packs through town a few blocks to an alternative residence. The alternative residence was shit. It had a shared bathroom, which was under several inches of water, and the most terrible bed we have ever encountered. It leaned more than the tower in Pisa and creaked incredibly every time we moved. We reluctantly stayed the first night in this place and checked out first thing in the morning. Despite that, the old town of Brasov looked brilliant. We had dinner on the main street of the old town at a great restaurant, and there were hundreds of people milling about and a really good atmosphere around town - live bands, buskers, even a clown! It was really fun.

Sunday

As above, we could not wait to check out on Sunday morning. The terrible place we stayed had been made worse by the fact that Megs was sick in the night and felt awful on Sunday morning. We took our packs and wandered the main street about 100m or so, where we found a brilliant hotel (Hotel Coroana), which was only £4 a night more expensive than Gina's garage. Get this, it was a clean, comfortable room with a massive bed and our own bathroom, not to mention free internet (PC) and Wi-Fi in the lobby! We checked in there, had showers, and Megan collapsed in the bed for the rest of the day.

Tim ventured out and wandered the gorgeous streets of the medieval old town of Brasov, snapping photos as he went. It was a stunning day - hot and sunny, probably about 28 degrees or so. Brasov is a city full of beautiful medieval buildings and plenty of bars, cafes, restaurants, ice cream shops, market stalls and all things fun. It also has an insanely high number of ATMs in such a confined place. Tim popped back to the hotel with water, lemonade and snacks for Megs, who was not feeling any better and just wanted to rest. So Tim headed off again and found a pub to watch the Belgian Grand Prix, a fabulous race that Sebastian Vettel dominated and won comfortably, which made Tim happy. Even better, 500ml beers in this pub cost just 4 lei (80 pence)!

Tim stumbled back into the hotel room a few hours later and we both watched Manchester United thrash a sorry looking Arsenal 8-2 in the premier league...the Gunners' worst defeat since 1896. Ouch. For dinner, Megs could only manage a McDonald's sundae with no sauce, and Tim went to the same place we had gone the night before, for a delicious by rather lonely steak and chips.

Monday

Monday dawned another superb day, with blue sky and sunshine all round. Megs felt a bit better, so we went out exploring the old town together. We had breakfast of pancakes and orange juice at a nice cafe on the main street and then wandered down to the main town square, Piata Sfatului. We visited the Tourist Information Office, where the girl was about as helpful as a frog in your trousers. We took a map and worked things out on our own.

We decided to visit the Black Church, a massive Lutheran church close to the main square, one of Brasov's main tourist attractions. The church was originally a Roman-Catholic chuch, known as the Church of St Mary. It was constructed in the late 14th century, although Catholic services were eventually replaced by Lutheran ones during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. A fire in 1689 partially destroyed the church, after which it became known as the Black Church. We thought the outside of the church was quite impressive, although the inside was a massive disappointment. Apparently Lutheran churches are as boring as they come. The only highlight was a brilliant painted carving of some saint playing "Smell my Finger" with an angel (see photo below). This made our day and we breached the no-photo policy to bring all of you fans a little ray of light during your working day!

We had lunch at a great cafe called the Come Back German Bakery (weird name, but delicious sandwiches and chocolate fudge). Interestingly enough, we did come back...several times in fact during the remainder of our stay. Perhaps a smart marketing ploy. In the afternoon, we walked across the old town to the cable car, a rickety old car made in Italy sometime before WWII by the look of it, which amazingly got us to the top of Mt Tampa, the huge mountain that dwarfs Brasov, the one with the cheesy Hollywood-style "BRASOV" lettering on the side of it.

The views from the top were quite spectacular. We could see all of the old town below us and the newer parts of Brasov, with hundreds of communist-looking apartment blocks beyond that, and then massive wide-open plains and distant mountains. After a spot of shopping and a bit of a rest, we joined a two-hour walking tour at 6pm, which was very enjoyable.

We learned about the history of the city of Brasov, some interesting tales about the Black Church and various other famous buldings of the old town and we got a great look at the impressive town walls and forticiations, which remain largely intact today! We especially liked Rope Street, the narrowest street in the city, only a touch over a metre wide. This street was apparently constructed by the local fire brigade centuries ago, to allow them to carry buckets of water from the fire station to the town centre to fight fires...no wonder the church burnt down!

The tour also took us to a suburb of Brasov, outside the town walls, called Schei. This is where the Romanians used to live during the era of occupation of the old town by Germans and Hungarians, all those centuries ago. Here we saw the beautiful St Nicholas Romanian Orthodox church (picture below).

After the tour ended, we had dinner at a fantastic place called Restaurant Transilvania, a few blocks behind the main street. This place specialises in traditional Romanian food and it mainly frequented by locals, rather than tourists. The food was beautiful and insanely cheap. We felt bad that they charged so little for such good food. Seriously, our dinner of starters, mains and a couple of drinks each came to £14. We shared an ice-cream for dessert at Ice-cream Land on the way home. You grab a cup and build your own ice-cream, mixing which flavours you like and adding whatever toppings tickle your fancy. Nice. Awesome day in Transylvania. 10 out of 10.

Tuesday

We woke and got going a bit earlier on Tuesday morning. We had a delicious breakfast at the Come Back German bakery and then caught a taxi to "Bus Station Number 2", where we arrived just in the nick of time to catch the once-hourly bus to Bran. A half-hour bus ride later, we arrived outside the famous Bran Castle, the castle supposedly lived in by Count Dracula!

There were swarms of tourists all around the castle and there were also literally dozens of souvenir stalls, all selling tacky vampire-related goods. The castle, however, could not have been further from our pre-conceived ideas of Dracula's castle. It was decorated with beautiful furniture from the 19th and early 20th centuries, which had been used by the Romanian royal family, who had lived in the castle in that time. So, the castle had quite a homely, comfortable feel to it, despite its small and pokey nature. We especially loved the "secret staircase", which led to the music room and library.

We took plenty of photos and bought a fridge magnet, before leaving Bran behind and returning to Brasov, where we had lunch at the Come Back German bakery. It was really good! We had a very relaxing afternoon, sitting in the sun in the main square, watching people wander by. After a spot of travel admin (booking transport and planning things for future countries to be visited) we went to the snooker hall next to our hotel and played some pool. It was the usual mixed bag, some brilliant and some awful shots!

We had dinner at the same restaurant as the previous night, the Restaurant Transilvania. It was, once again, superb food and extremely cheap.

Wednesday

We had a bit of a sleep-in on Wedneasday morning and then grabbed some breakfast and wandered about the old town. It was a very slow-paced morning! We walked to Schei, the suburb outside the town walls, where we had been on the walking tour. This time we went inside the St Nicholas Romanian Orthodox church, which was very pretty. We love how well decorated the Orthodox churches tend to be. Sadly the school next to the church was closed so we could not look inside that.

We walked back into the centre of Brasov, where we visited the Museum of History. It is housed in the impressive Town Hall building, which dates from 1420! Sadly the museum was pretty average. There were some interesting things on display, but the information in English was missing in places and difficult to understand in other places. There was no logical order to the displays - it seemed to flick back and forth in time a lot. The museum staff also followed us around and watched us as we walked through the museum, which was a little off-putting.

We managed to keep a close eye on the "Transfer Deadline Day" information (Arsenal made a few good and much needed signings on the final day), thanks to the widely available free Wi-Fi throughout the old town. Later in the afternoon, we bought train tickets from Brasov to Bucharest for the following morning, and then visited a shopping mall on the outskirts of the old town, where we picked up some snacks for the big day of travel ahead.

We rounded out the day with a few beers in a bar near our hotel and then we had a delicious dinner at a restaurant called Prato - mushroom risotto for Megan and spaghetti carbonara for Tim. Solid.

Thursday

Thursday was a big day of travel, but also a very exciting day for Megan. We had a sleep in and leisurely packed our things and got sorted in the morning, before catching the 12.50pm train to Bucharest. The three-hour train ride was fine and before we knew it, we were back at the lovely Gare de Nord train station in Romania's capital. Here we switched to an airport train, which took us to the airport for our flight to Helsinki, Finland.

After finding everything in Romania extremely cheap, we realised that the airport is not cheap at all. Luckily we had some Romanian lei to use up! Our flight to Helsinki left a little late at about 8.15pm and it took about 2.5 hours to get to Finland - Megan's 50th country!!! It also happened to be the day before Megan's birthday, meaning that she made it to the 50 Country Club while still 30 years old. Awesome.