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December05,2007"Transylvania, Romania"
recap: Thanksgiving weekend.
obviously Greece doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but CYA gave us an extra day off, allowing us a four-day weekend of traveling. for no specific reason, the four of us decided to go to Romania and sort of backpack through for a weekend. we hit four places: Bucharest, Braşov, Sighişoara, and Sibiu. of course, we also visited Bran Castle, supposedly the inspiration for Dracula, and even ate at Dracula's (alleged) birth-home in Sighişoara. we arrived in Bucharest on Thursday morning, celebrating our Thanksgiving with no turkey and barely a full meal because we had to catch a train to Braşov later that evening.
don't be fooled by this picture, however. Bucharest was not nearly as picturesque as Sibiu. while Bucharest is the capital of Romania, and very large, its grey buildings and few tourist attractions didn't appeal to us too much. not to mention Bucharest is notorious for prostitution and other shady things, but nevertheless, we did visit Ceauceşcu's monumental legacy - the Palace of Parliament - the second largest administrative building in the world next to the Pentagon. while our tour through the building was super short, the few rooms we saw were ridiculously over the top, with magnificent chandeliers and rococo (they claimed neo-Renaissance), gaudy architecture. the building consists of 1000 rooms, and is perhaps the most unnecessary structure i've ever seen.
we took a nice train north to Braşov that same evening, and arrived there quite late. there was snow all over the town, and with the big tree in the main piata by the old town hall, it felt like Christmas. the problem was that we had trouble finding the hostel suggested on the map at the tourist info center. even the policemen weren't of much help, but randomly, a Romanian man offered us a place to sleep for 50Leu/room for the night. it turned out that he worked for several people, picking up backpackers at the main piata (square) and finding them places to stay, usually the homes of various Romanian residents. we ended up staying at the home of an old couple, whom we couldn't communicate in English to. but at least we had a nice cozy place to sleep!
the next day, we walked a little around the old part of the city (town?) and saw the Black Church, an old Gothic style church which was later used by the Germans as a Lutheran church. (there were many Lutheran churches encountered on this trip.) we then caught a bus to Bran Village where we went to see Bran Castle. supposedly this is the castle that the book Dracula was based upon, but in reality, Vlad the Impaler (whom the character Dracula was based upon) never went to Bran at all. i don't know how Bran Castle came to be known for Dracula, but it was the first tourist attraction open in Romania, and is a pretty little castle that was used by Romanian royalty in the early 20th Century. while the structure was quaint to look at, it was a bit disappointing considering the hype given by tourist guidebooks. rather, the castle was small, full of random furniture from a past Romanian princess, and didn't have anything historically interesting. but what was hilarious was how right around the main gate before you enter the path towards the castle, there were many cheesy tourist souvenirs, mostly winter accessories and lots of Dracula paraphernalia. some of those items had nothing to do with Dracula, but were Made-in-China plastic toys and masks fit for Halloween.
because there wasn't terribly much to do after our visit to Bran, we took an afternoon train to Sighişoara, a medieval town with its citadel still preserved. the funny thing is when we bought our tickets, they were ridiculously cheap - around $6 (13.00Leu) each. when you buy train tickets, there are different types of trains, for example "R" is for "Rapid" - the newest, fastest direct trains. on our ticket, we noticed it said "P", but had no idea what it meant. it turned out that we had purchased tickets for the lowest class trains in the country, the kind of trains that didn't have assigned seats, were packed full of passengers, including many peasants. the train would slowly make its rickety way on the tracks, and stopped in the middle of fields to let off passengers. the passengers had to pull open the sliding doors of the train as the train was still moving, and as soon as the train pulled to a stop, passengers quickly jumped off the train and scampered off into the fields to their villages. it was a crazy experience, and made me think of Soviet trains.
Sighişoara was absolutely beautiful. even wandering around at night, it was obvious that the citadel stood out as the quintessence of medieval architecture in Romania. we made our way across the bridge to the older part of the town, and we walked up the steps into the citadel past the famous Clock Tower. our hostel was new, cheap, and amazingly comfortable. but our dinner was the best part, because we ate at "House of Dracula" where supposedly Vlad the Impaler was born. again, the town had its share of Dracula tourism, but at least the food was amazing, and the restaurant was really nice, with fancy bathrooms and a bar. unfortunately, the town was sort of a ghost town, because being the end of November, it was off season, and we were the only tourists in town. the next day, we explored the town a bit, only to realize that aside from the Clock Tower, there wasn't much else to see. walking around was also unpleasant considering the freezing temperature, but at least we had a chance to soak up some of the medieval history through the architecture and cobblestone streets. the town is really pretty, and the citadel is very impressive, but by the early afternoon, we were ready to leave and make our way to Sibiu, this time by bus.
our bus ride to Sibiu was surprisingly pleasant, despite the rough, unevenly paved roads. we drove through the countryside, and i was able to see some of the rural life in Romania. we passed through many small towns, which typically had the same style houses with one church towering over the town. some of the villages were so small that there were no cars in site, and perhaps had populations numbering only in the hundreds. it was a great experience to see another side of Romania, one that is hidden from the limited tourism it has. the countryside was very beautiful, and as we neared Sibiu, we could see the snowcapped mountains in the distance, creating a wonderful backdrop for Sibiu. after a long three hour ride through fields and remote villages, we stopped in the center of Sibiu, a modern city with population of almost 200,000, and was even voted the European Cultural Capital of 2007, tied with Luxembourg.
Sibiu was really pretty, but of course, we were only exposed to the old part with the famous piata and the famous towers preserved from the medieval times. of course, most of the buildings around the piata looked freshly painted, probably a result of their new cultural title among European cities. the piata had their Christmas decorations up, and the town looked much prettier and cuter than i had expected. on our first night there, we decided to take advantage of the "cultural" activities in town, which are usually concerts and performances. they only had a free performance of contemporary ballet, which turned out to be disastrous because the dancers were not coordinated at all. while there were a couple of jazz performances advertised, we couldn't go to those because both venues were fully booked with reservations. in the end, a couple of us went to a local bar to enjoy the cheap cocktails, and ended the night early. the next day, we did all the touristy sight-seeing around the piata, including the biggest church with the highest tower; the Bruckenthal museum which housed many pieces and a lot of them were quite decent; and the council tower which didn't have much inside. again, there wasn't too much to see, but the city was so pretty that walking around was fulfilling in itself.
it was such a crazy weekend, but i loved every minute of it, despite the stresses on the last night when we realized that we needed a hostel in Bucharest and hadn't looked into that too much. oh well, at least i came back alive, and got that out of my system.
more on Paris next time from this last weekend..