Current mood:

accomplished

Romania
Second time lucky... the first version of this got eaten by samj's computer! I'll split the holiday into days & put them behind cuts for easier reading. Photo's will follow at a later date when they are sorted out & online.

Friday 15th - London - Bucharest
I went down to samj's on Thursday night & early on Friday morning (after a not so restful night due to a prank call at 4am) we set off to Heathrow in a taxi (samj was worried about the tube getting stuck in a tunnel or something & us missing the flight). He needn’t have worried. We checked in etc only to find our flight delayed for an hour and a half. So samj had breakfast & I had my first tea of the day (samj forgot to get milk for me!), then we looked at the shops. samj decided to get himself a nice expensive digital camera and spent the rest of the wait playing with it! I tried to call mum & get her to pass on to dad that we’d be arriving late but I didn’y have her work number with me so I couldn’t reach her. I did make 40p on the payphone though.
We finally boarded the plane & I got a window seat (yay!). Then the food was wheeled out, we remembered to book veggie food but the side salad contained prawns. I pointed this out to the air hostess & also that prawns & fish count as animals therefore it is stupid to assume vegetarians eat seafood. We ended up being given starters from first class as a replacement which was very yummy!
We arrived in Bucharest where both dad & the driver he had waiting for us were annoyed. The latter more so as he was then late to another appointment. Oops.This did mean we got given a prime example of Romanian driving though!
After seeing dad’s flat, the local veggie market, supermarket & outdoors bar we went to a nice restaurant and ate lots of yummy food for only £14!

Weekend 16th/17th - Bucharest
We spent the weekend looking at the tourist sights around Bucharest. We went to Muzeul Satului the Village Museum & saw lots of lovely old style houses, windmills & watermills. We also went round the George Enescu Museum (famous Romanian composer) and the Palace of Parliament (huge financial disaster for the country that made a large proportion of the city homeless). We did much walking looking at the lovely old buildings & churches & samj took many photos. We also met the young translator from dad’s office & her partner (Elena & Alex) for a meal. The food was nice but restaurants seem to think main meals must contain meat!

Monday 18th - Transylvania
Monday morning we left Bucharest by train & headed north to Brasov where we met Alina our tour guide. (Alina is mid twenties, lives in Brasov, loves hiking, speaks excellent English & is great company!) After lunch we were driven to an old hill fortress at Rasnov that was build by the peasants of 3 local Saxon towns. When the country was invaded (as happened a lot) they all ran up there. The place has only every been taken by the enemy once and that was before they dug the well & had to get water from a spring outside the fortress walls.
We then went to see Bran Castle, this is called Dracula’s Castle for the tourists but it’s only vague link is that Vlad the Impaler visited it once in his youth. (It does contain at least 1 secret stair though!) It used to be a military fortress protecting a mountain pass but was given by the people to Queen Marie who made it more homely & lived there. It’s a very lovely castle, I want to live there! I was also very good & did not buy the pretty white floaty top from the stall by the castle.
We then went to a guesthouse in a small village called Moeciu de Sus where we went for a walk up the hill behind the house before supper. Beautiful views! Good food too.

Tuesday 19th - Transylvania
Tuesday we hiked up the mountains to the saddle (c.1900m) where were first attacked by sheep dogs (not your standard collie but fierce little things used to dealing with wolves & bears!) then samj’s lunch got eaten by an inquisitive cow! Hopefully the plastic bag it also ate won’t make it too ill. After a short hike down the other side of the mountain we reached Diana cabana (1610m) (think hall plus bedrooms one step up from tents & catered). We dumped our bags then walked up to see the Ialomitei cave (1660m) – this is a long cave system with a small monastery in the entrance. The nun told us the gates were locked in about an hour & if we weren’t out in time we’d get locked in. The cave was dripping lots of cold water over the wooden boardwalk in the cave. There were only a few handrails next to the slippery, uneven wooden steps & several plants had broken…. The lighting was rather poor so I was glad I took my torch! Anyway, we saw all the caves, plus the church and got out just in time.
Apparently there are lots of bears in the mountains and they often come down around the cabanas & tents in that area because of peoples BBQs. We sat & waited as it got dark hoping a bear would come early (there was a high metal fence around the cabana’s porch so we were safe)…. No bear came but there was a huge thunder storm that started the other side of the mountain (the flashes lit up the whole ridge) then came over & lit up the sky like bonfire night! It was the biggest storm I’ve seen & Alina said the same thing.

Wednesday 20th - Transylvania
The next morning we hiked back over the mountains taking a slightly different route down the other side. We were going to do a longer hike but the weather was a bit shitty. As it was we crossed the saddle in the fog (again being attacked by sheepdogs) & we were glad that the hiking routes are so well marked in Romania. We had lunch in a woodland glade bordered by a couple of mountain streams, it was very picturesque & there were no cows to steal food this time!
We got back to the guesthouse and waited for the driver to pick us up & take us to Zarnesti... The car arrived late but that was ok as it gave me a chance to dry out my waterproofs from the morning.
At the guesthouse in Zarnesti we were given a room with a lovely view (no double bed though). We again went for a hike before supper. This time up a mountain we could see from our window & over to a small traditional Transylvanian village called Magura (c.1000m). This was simply a collection of homesteads scattered over the mountain side. It looked lovely but what a long way to walk to school etc in the morning!
We were almost an hour late for supper but we apologised and ate all the food that was put before us (Mimi the owner of the house was an amazing cook!) which went down very well with our hostesses!

Thursday 21st - Transylvania
Today we started the same way as last night, out through the town to the mountains (we were followed all this way by a stray dog) and this time hiked up the taller mountains on the other side of the valley. We lost the dog to another group of walkers going down the mountain very quickly! We hiked to Zanoaga meadow (1375) in the mountains where we picked up another stray dog & called it Dog. Dog was very cute & followed us the rest of the walk. We stopped for lunch at a Curmatura cabana (1470m) and sheltered there from a brief shower. We decided not to hike further up the mountain as it was misty up there and we’d already been over one mountain range in the fog! We walked down though the valley where parts of Cold Mountain were filmed (must now see that film!). It again started to rain on us as we got back to the road so we put on our waterproofs and waited for the horse & cart taxi to arrive to take us to the wolf cabin where the wolves Poiana & Crai failed to turn up! (They were rescued as cubs after their mother was killed.) The site was/is part of the Carpathian Large Carnivore Project which started as a 10yr research project on wolves, then included bears & lynx. That part of the project ended in 2003 and they were planning on building a large center to improve tourism, education and provide jobs for the area. Zarnesti had 2 factories during the communist rule, a paper factory (still operating small scale) and a “bicycle” factory that made parts for guns. The closure of most of the works has lead to the majority of the town being unemployed & the area is very poor. It’s all a bit of a mess really.
Another lovely meal was served by Mimi & again we cleared our plates. We were also given some of the traditional plum brandy & bough a bottle of wine for ourselves and Alina as it was our last night in Transylvania. Merriment followed!

Friday 22nd - Transylvania
After settling the bill & paying Alina for the week we packed and the car came to pick us up & take us back to Brasov. We spent the day looking round the town seeing the old city walls and towers and the Black Church. After a yummy lunch in a cool restaurant in a cellar(!) we took a cable car up the mountain besides Brasov then hiked down just in time to get my last two postcards before the car took us to the train station. From above the old Saxon town with it’s walls is easily distinguishable from the Romanian town outside the wall and the newer town growth away from the mountains. We were rather sad on the train ride back as we loved the mountains in Transylvania. The carriage was also very hot as all the windows were shut (we were the first into the carriage so we opened then all!). We got back to Bucharest that evening, & went out for supper with dad who had had rather a trying week it seems.

Weekend 23rd/24th - Bucharest
The next day I helped dad get the photos off his digital camera onto his computer then we went to another museum of traditional Romanian stuff and I again did not but a pretty whitefloat top. Aren’t I good?! That evening we went out for supper at a nice restaurant by the lakes with Elena & Alex again. We were just walking along by the lake when it started to rain. We were seated on a moored boat (with covers) for our meal and so got a wonderful view (& feel!) of the storm over the lake! It was rather exciting really! There seems to be a storm every time we meet up although the one last weekend ended just before we met up with them! After that we went back to dads flat & Elena & dad started talking about work & the office then samj & Alex started talking about computers so I just drank my whisky & reflected on how strange it is that I am always surrounded by computer geeks... It’s really rather strange.
Next morning dad had to sort out more work stuff so we had a lazy time in the flat then went to the supermarket & I got yummy Romanian sweets to bring back - I'll share them if I see people before I eat them all! :)
The flight back was fine.. I again got a window seat as the girl who got it wanted to swap! The food was nice (no fish) & the tube ride home wasn't toocrowded thankfully.

Well, there you are.. well done if you managed to read it all! I'm sure I've left lots out that I'll add in as I remember/samj reminds me!

Oh & incase anyone got confused, my dad's currently working on a project out there this past year, hence he has a flat in Bucharest.