Transylvanian Inn Bran

... saving all of the kids lives, which would be 14 years. Then he somehow made the leap to we've been saving for this trip for the last 18 years which is the amount of time that has passed since our last trip around the world. That one in which we climbed Mt. Fuji and got engaged. That climb where Jim wanted to take a photo of me on the lip of the crater, the one where he kept saying back up a bit, back up, a little more..... I figure that he was thinking, if she survives ...

... ancient and then suddenly a horse and buggy pulls up along side your bus. As we were all excitedly chatting we didn't realize we were at the Castle until the bus stopped and we turned our necks out the window. THERE IT WAS!!! DRACULA'S CASTLE!!!!!! So, The castle was right there!! as big as life and exactly what you expected from the movies. The others and I couldn't contain ourselves and began taking pictures right ...

... names & stories of both our journeys - & we thought it was gonna be an early one tonight! Off to The Castle we headed in the morning - walked into the centre on another gorgeous day, before joining the very long queue to enter the Castle. Why do people insist on not queuing & pushing in - it's definitely one of my pet hates - I had me one side, Paul the other blocking anyone who thought they could push in front ...

... handle that one. He was the one that had to deal with that. On that note though, many of the people in the villages still do their work with horses, so horses pulling wagons outnumber the cars on the roads. Makes it interesting when the roads are only 30 feet wide. Good thing we have the spark. Now, on to Bran. Readers of Bram Stoker will associate Bran Castle with Dracula, but he actually never stepped foot in this castle. It just fits the story. The ...

... it was to impale them. He would sit them on a pole until it emerged through their neck and then would watch them writhe until they died in front of him while he ate dinner. He passed through the area once and stayed in the castle. No drinking of blood, no avoiding the sunlight, plenty of garlic in his meal. Brom Stoker decided it was a great idea for a story, the castle starred in a few movies and so now dracula is its icon. They also have a little ...

One week walking in the Carpathian Mountains. We stayed in a tiny village at about 1000m altitude near the town of Zarnesti (Zar-nesht). We saw wolves, bears, beavers, all kinds of crazy insects I've never seen before. The local pub was literally a tin shack. We went to Dracula's castle ...

... The rooms were small but numerous and there were walkways looking over the internal courtyard so for dramatic entrances and exits, nocturnal flitting in rainsoaked nightgowns and other Dracula related activities the possibilities were endless. I have to mentally erase hundreds of herding tourists, but I have seen Dracula's castle. On the way back to Brasov we went to see the citadel at Rasnov which was a far better museum and historical trip. The Citadel was even more dramatically ...

... place. It has European buzz about it with plenty of cute restaurants serving a mixture of local and italian cuisine. In winter it's apparently covered in snow and doubles as the main ski town of Transylvania. Quite pretty and certainly worth visiting for itself or to use as a base for exploring the region. The highlight certainly has to be the main square but there's some good hiking in the local area including a walk up ...

... we found our hotel, which was nice, except for one thing, Me. Happy. Mr. Happy manages the hotel, and at first we liked him, he got us a free ride to Ephesus (the most intact and preserved Roman city/ruins in the world, dating back to 2000 B.C. IT WAS AWESOME). Before continuing on about Mr. Happy, I think it is a good time to talk about the how hot it is in Turkey, ITS HOT HOT HOT DOUBLE HOT, we thought our insides were cooking, those of you in FL know nothing of HOT!!!! Its ...

... show for it. Brasov itself is nice, too, with lots of tourists and services to service them. I'm not the only one who’s noticed its Latin connections. There are even Andean musicians there, playing for tips and selling CD’s. Rooms are so scarce that one lady hangs out at the bus and train station ...