2012 Trip #2.5 - Romania

11:48 Alyson 0 Comments

I would like to call this trip from last weekend trip 2.5. Yes, only a half trip because only I went, no Paul. So while I won't necessarily count it as number 3 (unless we get all the way to 9 and this trip puts me over the edge), I still wanted to share it with you all.

In case anyone was thinking that I was an adventurous traveler, heading out into the great unknown alone, do not fret, or think me more courageous than I am. My friend from college Katy came and spent a week with me in Istanbul before heading to Prague, so we decided Bucharest was a perfect middle point between the two. Plus it was one of the few places that was cheap and easy to get to and neither of us had visited before.

Week before we leave, we check the weather - rainy forecast. Great.

Day before we leave, Katy researches things to do. Bucharest pops up on Rick Steve's list of worst places in Europe. Even greater.

Needless to say, we went into the whole thing with pretty low expectations.

Perhaps it was these low expectations that made the trip so pleasantly surprising. Or perhaps it was that we acted like Europeans and besides a walking tour and day excursion, we mostly randomly wandered side streets, ate and drank at little cafes and caught up on old times.

Bucharest probably gets a bad wrap because of its architecture.  After being part of a communist nation, you have lots of grey, block concrete buildings to look at.  But, despite that, there are tons of lovely things to see too.  Somewhere I read that Bucharest was a mini-Paris (although maybe that was actually Budapest), and you can see that in some places.  Narrow streets, steeped roofs, little cafes can be found interspersed throughout the not so lovely block buildings.



Next stop, Dracula's Castle or more appropriately Bran's Castle. This was a medieval castle that was a stop on the Silk Road and housed traders and government tax collectors. Once Romania became unified, the people of Brad gifted the castle to Queen Marie. It is most famous though for its associations with Dracula.  While it isn't really Dracula's Castle (see above, and yes really even though the guide may deny this and says vampires are real), it could have perhaps been what inspired Stoker's description of Dracula's castle in the books.

Last stop was the nearby town of Braşov. After a great lunch, including some goulash which show the Hungarian influence in the area, we wandered around the quaint city. It was such a cute little town, but impending storms took us home.