Romania

Timisoara - Sibiu - Rasinov - Sighisoara - Cisnadie - Carta – Brasnov - Siniaia - Bran (Draculas Castle) - Rasnov

Buna!

Romanian Sentence to Learn: Sint Dracula, Vreau satsi sug sangele!
(I'm Dracula, I want to suck your blood!)

ROMANIANS
Most tend to be very goth pale, with dark hair and eyes, and like to listen to scar punk/rock/heavy metal music (the young ones that is, and just like the Polish). They also are very good at English as they get English shows with Romanian subtitles, and tend to be chronically depressed, or just sad and melancholy, probably due to the poverty
they live in where they can't see any way out of their predicament. For example, a house would cost 100,000 euros in a town where the average salary is 150 euros a month!

They are however, a very friendly nation, since despite their poor conditions, would do all they can to ensure foreigners are comfortable. The couple I met after wandering in the dark after midnight on arrival to Timisoara walked a few kms with me to show me a cheap hotel, and also offered me to join them to a party the next day.

The next night, was invited by another young couple to their home for a home cooked dinner. Despite the dreary conditions their old little broken down apartment was in, it was cosy, and they even refused to let me buy them beers later on, continually buying me drinks instead. Amazing hospitality!

There are also Roma gypsies, distinguished by colourful free flowing cotton garments and dresses, long hair in plaits, and hands outstretched asking for money, even though most Roma are settled with stable jobs provided by the government, some even richer than the average person in Romania.

There are two types of Gypsy, White Gypsies and Dark Gypsies. The White Gypsies are generally nice unless you do business with them. They are generally very rich, having made money begging outside of Romania, and lending money with 20% interest per month to other Romanians inside the country, yet never wash, and live in wooden huts
built outside the big house and luxury car they own. The Dark Gypsies are the ones who tend to be aggressive and have no culture.

Romanians seem to like Asians. Everywhere I go I get smiles, a wave or greeting yelled out in Romanian across the street... One guy went up to me in a club and said "Hey you Chinese? I love you guys!".

And lets not mention Ilana, the Romanian girl I met in a club whose every second word while we were together was "D'amour!"


TIMISOARA, THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE REVOLUTION
The architecture in Romania is like nothing else you'd see anywhere else in Europe (almost). Romania is very diverse in it's architecture, each town seemingly having it's own style. In Timisoara you are confronted with colourful baroque buildings but with slightly distorted or bulged black roof tops and arch windows, some buildings almost
looking Gaudi-esque/Modernist even though they are centuries old.


SIBIU AND TRANSYLVANNIA
Headed to Sibiu, a small town inside Transylvania. Here the buildings become a lot more unusual and distorted. "The houses have eyes!". This refers to the roofs that contain (usually) two tiny windows in the attic covered by a fold of roof tiling, giving the impression that the house has eyes, quite an eerie experience as this makes the houses seem alive with character. Yes, this is Transylvania, the land of myths and legends. In this land you'd see huge fields of tall corn stalks, morning mist that seems to linger and dissipate at random, and fortified Saxon villages with similar surreal architecture, black pinched pointy roofs and towers, the perfect setting for any gothic (Tim Burton directed?) film.

There are alot of wild dogs running about, which could be the inspiration for werewolves, more legendary than Dracula and Vampires.

Did day trips to some of the fortified church Saxon towns that are scattered about the region such as Cisnadie and Rasinov. These towns consisted of a church surrounded by fortified walls for defence – the rest of the town would be built around it.


BEWITCHED BY MAIDENS IN TRANSYLVANNIA
The girls in Romania always seem to melt my heart with their beauty, their gentle disposition and sweet accented voice and their below the surface melancholy that makes me want to reach out and hug them!


SIGHISOARA, DRACULA'S BIRTHPLACE
Sighisoara is a beautiful (tourist) town, featuring the old walled town rising on a hill, complete with churches, cobbled streets and souvenir vendors around the area where Vlad Tepes (AKA Vlad the Impaler AKA Dracula) cheerful yellow house of his birth resides. The walls of the town feature several stone towers, each pertaining to
a particular trade guild (butchers, bakers, blacksmiths etc) of medieval times. There is also a scary looking covered long dark stairway leading to the "church on the hill" above the old town. The church is nothing special, but the German Cemetery with it's many worn marble tombstones, covered with moss and dry autumn leaves from the
trees amongst the graves, is extremely picturesque and for lack of a better word, romantic.


CARTA, A VILLAGE IN TRANSYLVANNIA
Did a day trip to Carta with Elena (hostel receptionist) on her day off work, which is a little village east of Sibiu. Here I saw White Gypsy houses, a picturesque ruined monastery with Saxon warrior graveyard, and a very fragile looking wooden bridge on verge of collapse, which we and her sister sat around talking and enjoying the views of the river and the Carpathian mountains beyond. Later we went to her grandmothers house there, where the house's bathroom was an outhouse behind the small house warmed up by ceramic wood furnaces you usually see in museums, grape vines, chickens and a huge vegetable and plum tree garden. Got some tuica (plum brandy) from a White Gypsy women who makes it in her backyard and enjoyed the sunset in a field while watching the horses and cows come home. Quite a unique wonderful experience.


BRASNOV
Is a very touristy place in Transylvania, a town nestled between mountains, with beautiful coloured buildings and the famous "Black Church" which wasn't very black at all. Here I based myself while I did day trips to:


SINAIA
A more beautiful town than Brasnov, also a ski resort, where after going up 2000m in the cable car, one can enjoy glorious views of the Carpathian Transylvanian mountains. The highlight of Sinaia is it's multi spiked stunning Peles Palace, with it's over the top interior decoration of intricate wood carved doors and walls, silk carpets, ornate furnishings and paintings and mirrors... I've never seen so much detail before, a definite favourite palace of mine.


BRAN CASTLE - DRACULAS CASTLE
Was a little disappointing, since Dracula never actually set foot there. Still, it looks like a castle that could be vampirish, picturesquely situated over a cliff edge. It was also quite small and very touristy.

RASNOV CASTLE
Rasnov is more beautiful and less touristy than Bran, a fortress town with ruins set on top of a hill through stones acting as steps through the forest. The views above extend to the plains of Transylvania below...


Tonight, bear watching, followed by heading up to the painted monasteries of Bucovina, north east of Romania.
La revederie!