Our first impressions of romania were not really very good and it wasn't really until last night that they improved. Saying that all we mostly did there was drive and the roads were pretty bad.
The first day we drove all the way to Brasov in pretty much the middle of the country. This was not really part of our plan, unfortunatly we got our wires crossed and ended up there anyway. We had intended not to travel that far east but whatever. Apart from the roads and the fact that it took forever to get there the countryside was really pretty. We drove through loads of rural villages with everyone cutting their hay by hand then loading it into their horse and carts and building cool old school hay stacks. The views from the mountains were amazing and the villages were super cute. Unfortunatly in the mountains our car was threatening to over heat so we didnt really get to enjoy it!!! The towns not so much cute with crazy traffic and pretty run down seeming.
Brasov i'm sure is a nice place if you don't arrive tired and very hungry at half past eight at night. We proceeded to get lost before discovering to our dismay that tourist hubs are not as cheap as out of the way places in Bulagria. We ended up in a nice enough guest house right in the center and drowned our sorrows in too much pizza. mmm pizza!!
The next day we looked at Bran Castle, this is where Bran Stoker set the Dracula book and is consequently famous. It is a very cool castle with loads of secret staircases and winding rooms and tonns of balconies. There was also heaps of interesting info on the Romanian royal family and Vlad Tepes the original dracula!!!
We then made our way to Sighisoara where we had intendeded to stay. Again with the towns not being so nice, the castle and old town center could have been awesome apart from that all of the roads and paths had been dug up and no replacement looking likely. As we sat having a drink at wobly pavement table (cos the pavement had been half dug up) we watched two guys almost randomly removing the cobbles from the only remaining paved section, right by where some people were sitting. They dug about a meter then stopped and sat down. hmm. we decided to move on.
The lonely planet talked about some cute villages about 100 km away apparently the epitomy of rural romania. we decided that was doable. we discivered the village of Gura Raului, looking for the the lonely planet homestay we drove the legnth of the village (which just kept on going) the houses are all painted bright pastel colours with big walls and gates. We passed loads of horse and carts and locals sittng out by their gates and a few cows wandering the streets. this was more like it!! The cart drivers all gave us funny looks for having the driver on the wrong side, mirrored by our looks at them for driving horses, awesome!!
We found a Pension run by a lovely family with window boxes and pet turtles. We sat out on the shaded terrace planning out the next few days. The owner came out and offered us dinner from a menu in romanian only so he just suggested a couple of things which were totally yummy. Breakfast was also super yummy, a massive platter of cold meats and cheeses and Jeremy had something romanian which was like a frankfurter. the whole family was lovely and the place and village was really nice so it really seemed that just one place redeemed the whole country in my eyes.
Today involved again a lot of driving but we are now in Hungary. We crossed the border this afternoon into the town of Gyula which is lovely. We are camping right in the center, from my chair (we finally got chairs, its awesome) in front of the tent i can see the castle and it was only a few mins walk accross to the Thermal Baths. It was so hot today that even Jeremy suggested going for a swim. The baths were awesome, sort of like a cross between Jelly park and Hanmer for those that know what I'm talking about. We swam in the wave pool and went on the hydro slide before checking out the thermal pools once we had cooled off. The water was really dark brown coloured, something to do with its thermalness I expect, it wasnt as hot as Hanmer, only 36-38 degrees in th hottest one, but that was super. There were intense massaging jsts that came on every now anad then and poured out from above!!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment