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.