Roaming Romania

While Brad booked us a trip to Malta, I looked East and booked a visit to Romania - what I didn’t imagine was  that a work trip to New York would be thrown in-between both weekend getaways, making for a mad May. Nevertheless – one must jump at these opportunities when they rear their heads, which is how I found myself getting back to London from 10 days in NYC, dazed and confused, then finding myself at the airport just 18 hours later, even more dazed and sleep-deprived than the day before. With all this time zone crossing and a 3am start to make it to the airport in time, I wasn’t sure which way was up or down, but what better way to get your bearings than in the depths of Eastern Europe, or the world’s human trafficking capital as I was kindly informed?

While the start was rough, after an hour snooze on the plane, landing in the humid hotness of Bucharest was more than bearable and I was very pleased we hadn’t cancelled the trip in favour of catching up on jet lag. We jumped in our tiny hire car and hit the road, all whilst avoiding being trafficked, and set off with Transylvania as our destination. We were delayed by an accident on the road, but this gave us a few moments to just soak in our surroundings – because while Romania is classified as Europe, it felt very, very different to anywhere where we had been before. Making the mistake of just assuming it would be like the rest of Eastern-Europe, we hadn’t given much thought to the trip, other than deciding we were going to spend most of the time in Transylvania, the home of Dracula, as opposed to Bucharest, the capital city.

Romania is far from what we expected – it was a quirky mix between traditional and new, undeveloped yet lovely and the people seemed so kind. I didn’t once run into a ‘Taken’ situation, which I had been lead to believe was the norm from everyone’s squeals of astonishment when they realised we were going there. Utter codswallop people – Romania is lovely! The girls are gorgeous, the people friendly, donkeys pull carts past billboards with people selling cherries on the side of the road. Its dusty yet green, the air smells fresh and warm. It has the most interesting history and I know as early as 10 years ago it was a very different place. My colleague went there on a school trip 20 years ago and he remembers seeing a man get run over, the car keep on driving and people scramble over to steal the clothes off the corpse! These are the stories we heard before going, but our experience was anything but scary - aside from this creepy statue we saw of two human babies suckling a wolf-hyene-esque creature...

We got to Brasov, our base for two nights, after a three hour car trip, for which I slept the last 30 mins, delirious from keeping my eyes open, where we had a quick bit of shut eye, waking three hours later! We walked the short few minutes to the centre of the old town, where we did a wee tiki tour and stopped at a recommended traditional Romanian restaurant where we sat outside watching the locals. It’s definitely a place where you don’t see many tourists! We quickly learned that the main staple of any Romanian dish – be it breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert is cheese. That’s deep fried cheese, boiled cheese, cheese sauce – any kind of cheese whatsoever. It sounds delicious – and the odd dish was – but most of the time it was rather flavorless and oh so fatty. We did strike it lucky with dessert though and managed to order the traditional pudding, deep fried cheese dumplings covered in jam. The great thing about Romania is that it is all so cheap too, so trying all the local delicacies is a cinch. With the jet lag creeping up on us, we returned back to the hotel where we slept for a record 14 hours!

Waking late, we only just managed to make it to breakfast with a few minutes to spare – thank goodness, as we would have missed out on cheese otherwise. After waiting a few miserable pieces of cheese and nothing much else, we set off to site-see, with the first stop being a funicular up the mountain. Brasov is home to a loveably gaudy  Brasov sign a la the Hollywood Hills, and the funicular takes you right up to the top where you can see the sign (giant white letters which almost block the view), as well as take a few nature walks and soak up the sight of the town. The view was lovely, as was the opportunity to just sit down and breathe in some fresh air. As for the actual Brasov sign – the jury is out. It’s funny and quintessentially Eastern-Europe, but I can see how locals were up in arms when it was created, as it doesn’t serve a purpose, other than comedic value, although I’m not sure that was the desired effect!  

We stopped for a wee snack, which of course, was cheese-based, before setting off back down the mountain-side in pursuit of lunch. Our lunch choice came highly recommended and was amazing – a wee basement cave, which felt as if we were in a cellar and was just lush. Unfortunately they still smoke inside almost everywhere in Europe and Romania is no exception so I was coughing away, especially with the old asthma, but a few puffs on the inhaler saw me right. I’d love to say lunch was delicious – it was an eclectic mix of traditional Romanian with a Mexican twist (go figure) – and once again we were brave with our choice, but what arrived was a dish of boiled polenta covered in thick cheese. It’s hard to remain positive, but again, given everything’s so cheap, it’s not like wasted money (which is exactly what it is given we couldn't stomach for than a bite). After a few mouthfuls of boiled tasteless matter and fatty cheese, we decided enough was enough, and set off to a little chocolaterie down the road for an éclair and ice-cream! We also managed to stumble across a cute wee antiques shop, where we bought a miniature tin soldier for our souvenir collection.

After a few hours rest at the hotel, we set off again, with the aim of visiting the Black Church who had an organ recital on. The Black Church takes its name from a fire which took place hundreds of years ago and tarnished the colour. Unfortunately when we went to the church the recital wasn’t on, and they were trying to charge us to visit. Against paying for churches, but happy to donate money, we stuck to our guns and turned away – after seeing the most beautiful churches in the world, we’re happy to miss out on this one and instead take the moral high road, which for us, means stick your tickets to see the stained glass up your ar*e. We’re going for dinner instead – boiled cheese awaits!

We then had our nicest dinner yet – not food wise, given we’re still talking cheese and polenta – but it was a lovely evening and we returned to our restaurant from the night before and watched the locals for hours, sipping Romanian red wine, which after a few glasses, became much more bearable! They had these little electric cars kids could hire, as well as paper lanterns you could release, and the town square was packed with blessed wee things smashing and crashing into pedestrians and each other, that it made for hours of entertainment. Parents seemed very relaxed as well – sitting back at neighbouring restaurants and tables, drinking with friends, while their kids in cars knocked over little old women. Human trafficking capital? I think not! 

With a wine glow, we then passed a shoe shop where I picked up a delightful pair of bright pink heels, and moved on to a pharmacy-themed cocktail bar, where we ordered cocktails, before heading back to the hotel in the early hours. A rather rocky night ensued – after 14 hours the night before – lo and behold, we could barely sleep a wink, but nevertheless the hours passed and morning was upon us.

Awoken by a wee girl banging on our door for ‘Papa’, we gave up the fight for sleep and made our way to the restaurant for breakfast – more cheese, lucky for some! We checked out and hit the room, bidding goodbye to beautiful Brasov, in favour of Bran to visit the infamous castle – aka the home of Dracula! On the way we passed through a tiny town called Rasov which lo and behold, also had a Hollywood Hills-style sign, lest you forget where you were. There must have been a bulk buy done there at sometime  - absurd! After just an hour, all of a sudden we were there, and like Stonehenge and the Eiffel Tower, the castle just smacks you in the face – it’s impossible to miss as you drive along!

Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, was a rather disturbed fellow, famed for his sick and torturous nature – at one point he impaled his victims on a stick through their bum, swerving to miss the vital organs, so that the stick emerged through their mouths and they died a painful death which took days! The castle was said to have inspired Brahm Stoker's Dracula and it was filled with information on the legend, the book and Romanian history. 

 After we had our fill of history, we got a huge amount of food from a Romanian bakery and sat in the sun eating.

We hit the road, heading for Bucharest where we were spending the night before flying back into London the following day. We got to piping hot Bucharest late afternoon and unfortunately our start wasn't ideal. We managed to find the hotel with no trouble, but assistance in finding the car park was shoddy at best. The language barrier certainly made things difficult, but the poor service was worse. The teenage girl helping us couldn't really be arsed and after giving us the wrong directions twice, she asked her drunk friend who was sitting behind the desk to help show us the way. He didn't speak a word of English, other than  a phrase he repeated at least 50 times in the 30 minutes we spend circling the city trying to find the car park: 'Romania... Problems!' After going in to the hotel to complain yet again, another less drunk friend came out and helped us. The girl was giggling her head off as we checked in and by this stage, we were feeling far from relaxed. Our room was nice enough, although incredibly loud as we were right above the main road on the second floor. A bit crabby, we decided to make the most of the rest of the evening and see the capital city, which we found lovely and very pretty, but nothing particularly special. We did stop off at a restaurant which came highly recommended by Lonely Planet and had another old meal of fried cheese and chicken covered in cornflakes!? We've realised that nothing was going to impress us food wise in Romania, it was just a matter of eating out of routine - is anyone ever hungry for boiled cheese and polenta? 

Several hours later we made it back to the hotel, where we had to move rooms at midnight as I couldn't sleep a wink with all the noise. Exhausted after a few hours sleep, we rose and made it safely to the airport in one piece, leaving with lovely memories of unique Romania, but very thankful we had spent just a few hours in Bucharest and took the road less travelled! 

Up next... Hola Mexico!