Vampires and monks in Transylvania
Trip Start
Aug 22, 2006
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32
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Trip End
Dec 11, 2006
Brasov, Romania
Monday, November 13, 2006
We ended up in the Sweet Room (the rooms have names, there's the Shagging Room, but obviously that wasn't for us). Our room has a balcony with at the time what looked like a view of dark hills. The hostel gives our drink coupons and a 5th nights stay free, so we are now staying for five days. We have six person room all to ourselves for a while.
13 November: There's running water all the time and hot water in all the sinks, it's luxurious. Our last hostel really was not prepared for being open. I think I'm going to love this place. Breakfast is rather sad, just toasted bread (with 'almost' jam), tea, or coffee. Today's agenda involves my getting things shipped at the post office. There's a post office really close to our hostel but it doesn't ship packages, so we walked downtown to the next one. I was able to buy boxes but she said they also don't ship boxes, I told her Statile Unite but she said no and gave us the street name of the place that would ship to the states - Grivitei. The post office at Grivitei only ships within Romania. What a wonderful day. We brought my stuff back to the hostel and then went in search of Carrefour for groceries. We spent too much money but we will eat well for the next several nights. We even bought dessert. With our walking through the city and our bus excursions we saw most of the tourist attractions along the way - The Church with black spires (St. Nicolas) is directly down the hill from our hostel, as is the first school where the Romanian language was used (its a museum now). We walked through the Gate of Brasov, saw the Brasov (Hollywood) sign on the hill, and several of the important Gothic looking buildings around the city. The strange thing was the weather, it would snow every other hour, sometimes big puffy flakes, sometimes a lot more like sleet.
14 November: When we woke in the morning there was a light dusting of snow on the ground of the hills surrounding us. The view from the balcony was very pretty. After showers and breakfast we thought we'd try the funicular up the mountain to the Brasov Hollywood-like sign, not to see the sign but to see the view from above and to the mountains beyond. Unfortunately it is being repaired, so it's closed, we don't know if it will be open while we're here or not, perhaps E will let us try to hike up there at some point this week.
15 November: Going to Castle Bran (aka Dracula's castle). We had signed up for the tour at the hostel but it was only us so it got cancelled. We did it very easily on our own. Took the 12 bus from the statue in the square down the hill from the hostel - though first it went up into the hills and back to the square before going into the city. Got off that bus at the Auto Gara and waited about 2 minutes for the bus to Bran - the front says Moieciu but it goes past the Rasnov fortress, then drops you at the foot of the hill for Bran Castle, you can't possibly miss the stop. I'm rather happy I didn't have to waste my money on the tour since it was so cheap and easy to get to the castle on our own. The castle was not at all what you'd expect - not dark and sinister, quite the opposite, but I like it very much. There's a little village down the hill, but it being winter and off season the buildings were all locked. There were a million kiosks selling souvenirs and things. Having shipping problems I didn't buy anything, though almost found the perfect thing for a Christmas gift (very heavy though). We ate lunch in a little shop next to the bus station and we made it back to Brasov around 14:30. The hostel finally filled with people. We even had to vote on a DVD to watch together, and that DVD didn't even work sop we ended up with second choice which apparently bored everyone to death because they all went to bed. Only me and another guy stayed to the finish around 1AM. I've decided I don't really like that movie, but glad I stayed to watch it all otherwise another time I would have had to attempt to rewatch it to see what I missed.
16 November: Woke up around 8AM but everyone else was still sleeping so I went back to bed. Slept in, late breakfast, Off to the post office yet again. We got information about the proper post office to ship things internationally from the hostel -it is on Grivitei, right next to the place we tried last time, and crazily I almost went into the door the first time we went but E called me back and asked where I was going, so I never actually went in - of all the bad luck. However, it was incredibly easy and there were no extensive lines (which you'll find at every single other post office until 19-20:00, insanity). After that we thought to try the funicular again but got sidetracked. Shopping for our souvenir Romania pin (not found as yet) and belts. My very old leather belt broke and E needs a new one as well, but it's been about a week now. After shopping we had crapes for lunch, very delicious snack. It being late for lunch we didn't want to spoil our dinner back at the hostel.
17 November: We leave Brasov tonight at 21:20 for Budapest, Hungary, arriving at 6:52AM!!
