Vila Retezat Sinaia

It all started with my phone singing lady gaga's Poker Face... yes, it's time to get up.. no coffee time, just dress up and cross the street to the hotel where my tourists are already waiting for me... We get to the the minibus and leave to the first spot - the Rasnov Fortress... we pass the St. Bartholomew Church, the Cristian village and here we are, in front of the fortress up the hill, looking straight to the ...

... ended up napping through the sunny part of the visit! Oooops! We did take a tour of the Peles Castle which was built in 1883 with 160 rooms. Our tour guide was very snippy and ready for her day to end, but the tour was definitely worth doing. The Pelisor Palace was smaller and not as "cool" looking so we decided not to pay to go in. Layton did try some bear meat! It was actually pretty tasty and ...

... dramas, Scooby Doo and The Flintstones in Romanian...adds another dimension...and then Oprah...an amazing show about something called "The Forgiveness Project". Check it out here: http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/ Quite timely since yesterday was the anniversary of 9-11 and I think most of us would benefit from more forgiveness and compassion in our lives... Head to Bucharest tomorrow and then on to Bulgaria...

... and there are no pictures of such. Okay, I'm totally lying. I got covered in puppy germs and loved every second of it. I probably would have stolen one if I knew I could bring him home. Now, they have to live a life of struggle in Romania. Poor puppies. After Bran, we carried onto our campsite in Brasov. We ate our meal in the campsite's restaurant. Although we vowed not to eat dessert anymore (our dreams of ...

... 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 ...

... Brasov we reach the ski resort of Poina Brasov and catch a glimpse of the hotel where we were originally scheduled to stay. We are all grateful that I changed the program at the last minute to have us stay in lively Brasov rather than in the beautiful (but quiet) natural setting of the mountains. At about a quarter to three in the afternoon we are approaching the Castle Bran, and our guide is launching into his explanation of the history of the castle. We have ...

... way. The point I wanted to make is that so far, particularly in Eastern Europe, we have found the smaller towns so much better than the capitals (see now why I wanted to put in that pretension Disclaimer?). It's not about the road less travelled, it's just simply that they are much nicer places. Dubrovnik, for example, is a hundred times nicer than Zagreb. Mostar puts Sarejevo to shame, although it's the latter that has been rebuilt after the war. And here in Romania ...

We needed to stay another night in Cluj Napoca. There was no one to meet us at the station so I took a punt and ran up to the old lady`s place that we`d stayed at before. She was full but her son and his wife had a spare bed. Cool and close to the station. We put our bags down and David noticed a pc and stack of dısks. Nosey ******* that he is, he flicked through them - they were all hard core porn!! The wife had appeared so innocent with her little 8 month old ...

... backpackers to take back to her ad hoc hostel, basically an apartment converted for that use, entirely DIY auto-pilot. God help you if one of your back-packer buddies leaves the door open or some other such irresponsible nonsense. A couple days of this is enough, but I still like Romania, so book a train to Timisoara.

... on, considering that we did not share any languages in common. It's too bad I had to leave to catch the bus, I'm sure I could have had a match myself! I also wandered around the market a bit and bought some Hungarian bread which is wrapped around a stick and then cooked over fire. I forget the name of it, although to me it is now called Devil Bread as it is one the last things I ate before I became incredibly sick for two days! Next was off to another ...