Sibiu

On Saturday, we were driven from Brasov to Sibiu. All these drives have shown us you don't want to drive in Romania. There's only a few highways and only a couple that are 4 lane. There's a roundabout every few miles, it seems, and many going into and out of a city. On the two lane highways,  drivers pass other cars with little regard for the possibility they could have a head-on collision. The drivers they are passing may even have to brake to let them in but it must just be custom since there doesn't seem to be much road rage.The worst thing, though, is there are no warnings when you're approaching a construction zone which causes everyone to slam on the brakes and wait until they can pass around them.  On the other hand, in any city, all you have to do is put a foot on a pedestrian crosswalk and cars will stop on a dime.

On the way to Sibiu we stopped at Fagaras to see a citadel and the gold church.The fortress which has 150 rooms is said to have been given to a woman by her husband. Although the fortress has been around in some form since the 12th century, one of the rulers doubled the walss and had the interior decorated with luxuries from all over the world. I don't think the Gold Church is connected but I don't really know. It's beautiful.

Fagaras Fortress

Fagaras Gold Church

At the Sibiu international theater festival,  we did not do what you're supposed to do which is see shows all day. Almost everything was sold out and I couldn't book ahead of time because the website wouldn't accept bookings from the US. On the first night we were able to book an organ recital at a church outside of town. This year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Transylvania so all historic cathedrals are having organ recitals this summer. Information at the church said the pipe organ is the biggest in Romania but the Black Church in Brasov also makes that claim. The organist had impressive credentials and the Bach pieces were OK but the modern stuff, not so good. We did wander around seeing the architecture of the old walled city and a couple of cathedrals. There is one modern one that is impressive--every square inch inside is painted. Since it was built in 1900 and painted in 1950, no one cares about it.

Painted church

We met up with the Trapdoor people  when they arrived from performing at a Romanian military academy. There were 245 soldiers in the audience, including some NATO personnel. They leapt to their feet when the play was over and presented each actor with a military badge.  Trapdoor had been chosen by the Festival people to be the first company ever to go to the base and the only one this year.

There's a performers tent where everyone goes to eat, drink and dance. We had to borrow badges to get in. We didn't stay for the dancing but we still developed next-day hangovers for some reason. The Trapdoor play was sold out before the festival opened so I told Nicole she had to get us tickets somehow.  She told the  playwright who we met at the tent and he said he would get us in.

The next night we went early to the theater. I was told the tickets were in my name. I told the ticket person who said they weren't there and that the show was sold out. I had been told to say "Matei Visniec left the tickets." It's like saying Neil Simon left them. She said, "I put them under Visniec.  I don't know your name." Our seats? Row 1, seats 1 and 2. Close to Jim O'Quinn of American Theater Magazine. Yes, I've become a name dropper of the Romanian theater scene.

The show is very physical so each actor is suffering from bruises and swollen joints.  The set, designed by the director from Budapest,  is striking. The performances are brilliant. As for the subject matter, it's about communism. I'll make up something more intelligent to say about it later.

And that's the conclusion of our Scotland /Romania trip. Both countries are great--I recommend them. Just maybe not on the same trip.

Viscri and Sighisoara

Funniest thing we've learned on the whole trip. Prince Charles has bought and restored 2 houses in Viscri, an ancient village. It is said two women invited him to the town and he was intrigued so he went and fell in love with the area. If you look online,  you can see pictures of him with local farmers, farming with traditional tools and methods

. He also bought a hunting lodge in the mountains.  He visits 2 or 3 times a year. Other famous people like Bill Gates hunt in the area. Deer and wild boar are the popular game.

Prince Charles house; you thought it would be fancier

In Viscri,  he bought two adjoining houses and combined them with one courtyard which we could see by looking through cracks in the ancient gate. The houses have been restored with authentic furnishings. Look online to see it and you can book rooms there. Expensive by the town's standards. Romanians didn't visit the town until Charles started visiting. Of course,  he brings an entourage of body guards. Vlad claims the villagers don't mind but I'm not sure. The town is like stepping into the 1800s. Lots of babushkas. Also a large gypsy population.

Most Handsome Viscri Rooster; I don't know whether he belongs to the Prince

To get to Viscri, you exit the main road onto an unpaved road with a pothole every 6 inches. It's 4 miles long but takes a long time to drive it. We thought the prince should pay to fix it but he can't.  Keeping the original road is part of the agreement when it became a UNESCO heritage site.

A fortified church is the main attraction of the town. It was built in the 13th century. It costs to tour it now but the price includes the history museum. You climb around in what looks like a barn to see artifacts like looms and traditional clothing and tools on each level. Here and in many other collections are wooden chests where food and other household goods were kept. The wood itself is beautiful, lots of walnut with carvings, but the drawers are painted. Same with items like wall pegboards. They seem to have had a lot of artists.

Viscri fortified church

Speaking of artists,  our last stop was at the gypsy blacksmith's. He can make anything metal and is the examiner for students graduating from the London school of blacksmithing. He wasn't there but his wife was happy to show us his shop. She gave us tiny horseshoes as souvenirs.

Sighisoara, our next stop, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Romania. It's a walled city with a fortified church. Of course,  the history of every town is different,  but the basic facts are the same. Each fortress was attacked multiple times and sometimes captured. The residents would hide either within part of the fortress or in the church while the soldiers shot arrows and poured boiling oil through the defense windows.  When Christians were the attackers, they wouldn't destroy the churches so the people were safe. There is one fortress high on a mountain outside of Brasov that was defended by 7 soldiers for a year against an army of hundreds. The fortress had a small room stocked with food and water corresponding to each house in the village. After a year, they ran out of water and had to surrender.  The attackers were so impressed they let everyone live.

The trip to Sighisoara almost did us in. We knew about climbing 174 steps in the tower. That was relatively easy since the tower is the history museum so you stop on every floor and look at things.

What we didn't realize is that we had to climb a mountain to see the church. I don't know why we didn't know that--it's right there. There are two ways to get there--a covered tunnel or a path. We were told the path was easier. The cobblestoned street was made of cobbled boulders. It was very hard to walk on so we had to stick to the sides of the path.  Going down was easier but it was hot and not a lot of fun.

Sighisoara Tower

We climbed a mountain to see this and I don't even remember it

Re Comments

Thanks, Anonymous for the heads up about Bran. The Trapdoor people were going to go there even though we told them not to.

For clarification, we are now in Sibiu and will see the Trapdoor show tomorrow. They performed for soldiers yesterday. We met the playwright who is the most famous playwright in Romania and he was very pleased with their performance. He said it had energy.  Next year, there's an international theater festival in the capital of Moldova about his plays. Theater groups from all over the world, including Trapdoor, will perform his works. No one knows why Moldova is having a festival in his honor. We did know they are performing in Brasov but we weren't going to be there then so we're not going.

As for food, we are now Romanian food experts. Therefore, we had Italian last night.

Tour to Peles and Bran Castles

What a difference 4 years makes. The last time I did this tour with the same guide we had today, we just drove to the castles and walked in. Today the crowds were huge and, unfortunately,  with lots of school children,  especially at Bran. Vlad, our tour guide, told us the number of tourists in Romania has doubled in the last couple of years. The Chinese are coming in droves now. He asked a Chinese tour guide why and he said they will no longer go to Western Europe because of terrorist attacks. Now they are touring Eastern European countries, sometimes 4 or 5 on the same trip. We have seen many tour buses in Brasov, especially in the mountains yesterday.

It rained all day which made both driving and touring miserable. However, it's the only really rainy day we've had.  Peles castle, built between 1873 and 1914 is in a beautiful setting. It is said to be priceless because it could never be replicated today.  The materials and decorations were all imported.

Front of Peles Castle

Peles in accidental black and white

Fountain in front of Peles

Queen Mary--I don't know why she isn't happy

Luckily, Romanian tour guides have priority in lines and the Romanians don't even glare. Otherwise, we would never have toured Bran since there was a line of a few hundred school children.  It was awful--very crowded and the children ran around screeching and shoving. Lola and I both had an incident where we either yelled or shoved a kid.  It was ok, though, because they don't speak English.  The Romanians don't call Bran Castle the Dracula Castle like everyone else does. When Vlad rents the castle for a midnight party and everyone dresses up like Dracula, they usually are tourists. The castle truly is an architectural masterpiece for its time but I can no longer recommend a visit.  According to Vlad, it is packed from opening until closing. I'm guessing, though, an hour before closing might be best.

The lack of internet here in Brasov has been bothersome but we're off to Sibiu so we might do better.

Bran Cast;e Courtyard

Cable Car

The last time I was in Brasov, I avoided riding the cable car up the huge mountain to the Brasov sign by trying to go the day it was closed.  Today, we found out the time and decided to chance it. I have always been under the impression that it started in town and went to the top of the mountain. It actually starts about half way up the mountain. We got instructions from the front desk and had a very nice walk on a winding trail which is called the Promenade of Tampa; people were walking it, biking, walking dogs, pushing strollers. Not a lot of people were going to the cable car. On the way, you see remnants of the walled part of the city.

Going up the cable car

View from the top of the mountain named Tampa

The ride was very scary. The cables and cars are from the 70s. No improvements have been made. They claimed the car holds 20 people; we were crowded with 12. But the terror is worth the view. Walking down the mountain takes over an hour but we had bought the round trip ticket...and didn't want to waste the money. There are other trails at the top of the mountain but they are very rough so we didn't want to try to see the bears and foxes and wild boars. We stayed at the top of the mountain about 10 minutes and then took the car down which was much faster than the car up. It was an easy enough walk back down to town.

Catherine's Gate, part of the old walled city

Earlier in the day, we had walked past the old town to a park where there are chess tables and old men playing and beautiful, beautiful gardens. It's obvious someone works hard on the designs and upkeep.

There were gaggles of peacock flower arrangements in the park

We also visited the Black Church which named that because there was a fire there in 1600s. Originally a Catholic church, it was finished by German Protestants and remains the largest medieval church in Romania.  It also has one of the largest pipe organs in the world. Unfortunately, we're missing the Bach concert which is performed on Tuesdays and Sundays.

The Black Church--it is not leaning; that is my picture taking

I reread my blog about Romania from 2013; one of the posts is entitled "All Romanians are Italian." I wasn't here too long the last time but apparently I mostly ate pizza then, too.  Tonight we were going to go to a real Romanian restaurant but it started raining so we stayed at our hotel restaurant which has both traditional and Romanian food. I had the traditional Romanian tempura shrimp and vegetables; Lola had the real Romanian food--duck and potatoes. Both were excellent and neither was pizza.

We have seen posters for Trapdoor's performance here but just discovered we are staying directly across from the theater where they'll be performing on June 17.

GREAT COFFEE IN ROMANIA.

Now We're in Romania

Yesterday, on our last day in Scotland, it rained for most of the day. We did manage to ride the Hop On bus for its entire circuit and got off at Glasgow Green to see the glasshouse we hadn't seen before. It's a small greenhouse with a small cafe inside. Against my better judgement,  I ordered coffee and was once again disappointed.  The Scottish just don't care enough about coffee.  One of the few decent cups we got was at the airport today.

The rest of the day, we got organized and packed. Then we went to dinner at the famous Johnny-recommended  restaurant,  2 Fat Ladies at the Buttery. The restaurant  seems to be the only business in a residential area. It's small, quaint. It is famous for its fish dishes. I had scallops with small pieces of chorizo and sweet potatoes. Scallops and chorizo seems to be a common combination here.  Lola had lemon sole which was excellent.  It was topped with samphire, a tasty green. We didn't know what it was and had to ask the server and research it.  I guess it's grown somewhere in the US but I don't know where.

Today we flew on Blue Air from Glasgow to Bucharest. Besides the fact the planes have no screens,  no movies, and few extras,  the ride was more comfortable than most. We had more legroom than on more modern planes and there wasn't a third person in the row. The plane looked familiar;  Blue Air must have bought their fleet from Delta. I was so afraid they would cancel the flight because no one wants to fly from Glasgow to Bucharest,  but I was wrong. There had to be 150 people on the plane.  It just makes that flight three times a week and seemed to have a lot of Romanians passengers. Blue Air is trying to expand,  maybe even into the US.

When I booked the tickets,  the website asked if you wanted to order lunch,  so I did since I figured a low cost airline wouldn't serve food. Shortly after we took off, around 11:30, someone brought our lunches. We knew they were ours because they had our names written on them. Very few people got those lunches. The attendant who brought it said on this long flight,  they serve lunch for free so next time,  I shouldn't order it.

Shortly after we got our meals, the attendants whisked by with a cart of what looked like all alcoholic drinks for people to buy which very few did.  I was waiting for soft drinks,  coffee and tea or even water to be served but they never were. In fact, lunch was served with no liquids of any kind. I didn't see one passenger ask for a beverage, ever. And this was a 3 and a half hour trip.

Finally,  fearing total dehydration,  we asked whether we could buy water. We could, for 2 pounds a bottle. Worth every pence.

We have two tours planned from Brasov with the tour guide I had the last time I was here. He also offers transportation so we had his wife pick us up at the airport and drive us to Brasov. That took about 3 hours and although the scenery is beautiful,  especially when you get to Transylvania,  it was tiring.

We checked into the hotel I booked to find out our room is 4 flights up, under the roof. No elevator.  One of the beds is on the second floor of the room. The air conditioner doesn't work very well and the WiFi doesn't work most of the time. Not one of my better picks although if you want to stay in Old Town,  you have to stay in an old hotel.

There are loads of restaurants on the square. Most of the people eat outside. We wandered around looking at menus and discovered most restaurants are Italian or pizzerias.  We broke down and got pizzas.

It's hot here today and rain is predicted for our tour tomorrow.  Plus, there's much more tourism than there was the last time I was here. Our driver said there's been 800,000 tourists already this year. We're going to Peles Palace and Bran Castle so most of the time we'll be indoors. With Dracula.