Bucharest/Transylvania, Romania

Sadly, I don't know what to say about Bucharest. It is an old beautiful European city with vibrant culture and life.. with the exception on Mondays. After getting tired of trying to get out laundry clean for under $US 60 (my clothes aren't even worth that much) we didn't do too much. The city was wandered, espresso was sipped and we did out best to avoid the rabid dogs the guide books told us to keep away from. Later that night we wandered around a large mall where I heard 'Laffy Taffy' being piped in (Gotta love snap music) and then dined at a Dracula themed restaurant. Food amazing, decor tacky and dinner theater being almost bad that it might reach performance art status. Train to Transylvania the next day.

Transylvania is breath taking as in I took my fair lung fulls of clean mountain air. Brasov is a sleepy city about about 400,000 which hosts things like international classical music festivals in the summer and has a pretty well developed tourist infrastructure. History, with the 13th century church in the middle of town square is butted against KFC and sneaker shops. Inflation used to be rampant here and you can buy the fly green Puma motorcycle kicks that just came out for about 2.2 million lei. They are completely replacing the money with new currentcy revalued at a thousandth the old money by the end of the year.

The hostel we were staying at did a day tour of the three large castles in the area. Siniai had the summer crash pad of King Carol I. This was the nicest house I have been in. The detail in everything was brilliant. Hand carved wood walls, mirrors five meters high, a teak furniture set that took three generations of Indians to make, secret stairs, Persian rugs in the hookah room... It must have been good to the king.

Bran Castle is marketed as Dracula's Castle, but history has little evidence that Mr. Vlad the Impaler ever made a cameo here. Cute little castle nonetheless. Then the tour went to Rasnov citadel which is on a hilltop overlooking a little town, farmland and a defunct nuclear power plant. Getting mid evil was ruthless. In the museum there were prints of people being executed by being hung by their feet on public gallows and having hungry dogs hung the same way next to them. The brutality in this area is more then a modern 20th century construct.

Signora is a chill sleepy town nestled in a small valley. Along with a couple of travelers met at the hostel and the train we decided to gout out and get a drink. Tuica is a homemade plum brandy that a few shots along with a few 0.5 L local beers means game over. The next day was strolling through the town to have coffee where Vlad the Impaler was born (now theme restaurant) and a late lunch at a place looking over the town... mellow and pleasant. Said goodbye to my travel mate and then hightailed it to Hungary wondering when I might come back to Romania.