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Other entries in Braşov

Out and about in Transylvania

Leaving mid-morning (there's no such thing as an early start in Romania!), I got one of the hostel's owners to take me up into the Transilvanain towns of Bran, Brasov and Peles. The other guy who came with us was a crazy northern Polish guy with a love of all things Spanish...especially his beloved Real Madrid soccer team (which he's signed his 4 month old daughter up for membership).

SO. After the late start we crawled our way of out Bucharest (the traffic was terrible because the only major road out of town was closed for repairs and was supposed to be open a week ago...) towards Peles Castle. This was one of the castles that a German prince built in the area to remind him of the Black forests of home. Fairly nice castle it was too, but apparently his mistress didn't want to share with him so he built her another one (smaller), just around the corner. Royalty huh?

The next stop was the small town of Bran, which was the setting of Vlad Tepes' (Dracula) castle in Bram Stoker's famous book. In real life however, he only ever attacked the castle once (and probably never even stayed there). This hasn't stopped the locals from marketing themselves though! The whole street near the entrance to the castle is chock full of souvenirs, from coffee cups and shot glasses to tea towels and shorts. So, pretty much the same stuff you can buy anywhere else but with all things dracula related. Good old tourist shops!

The last stop on the list was Brashov, a small German town with a huge Black church in the middle (it was burnt down at one stage, giving its name)....oh and a huge hollywood style sign on the adjacent hills. Why? Apparently in the Soviet days these guys loved Stalin so much that they put his name up in lights on the hill to celebrate him, and even named the town Stalinville. After the revolution came, they decided that they didn't like Stalin so much after all, but wanted to keep something up on the hill...so what better thing to put up there than their new name?

Before heading off, we all had a meal at a local restaurant to taste the local cuisine. I think I had some Romanian dumplings...but it was pretty nice! The Polish guy was very typically Polish with a huge appetite...he managed to put away a very large bowl of cow stomach soup, another rather large portion of beef and topped it off with what looked like half a cake. He was still hungry after that but decided to finish there anyway....

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