Sighisora, Romania
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2008
1
15
31
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Sighisoara,
Romania
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
About two stops from the Hungary-Romania border we stopped at a small station where there were about a dozen passengers, each with about a dozen plastic grocery bags and igloo coolers. As soon as the train stopped people started shouting, yelling, running down the hallway and passing grocery sacks and igloo coolers in through the window. Karla and I had no idea what was going on. After 5 minutes of shouting and bag passing, things calmed down and the train started moving again. All the bags had made it on, but not all of the people....TSA would have a shit-fit over this, but remember, we're in Eastern Europe. We were the only cabin left with two people in it. I'm sure all the people took one look at us; Karla with her book, me on my laptop listening to my iPod, and decided against asking us to courier coolers across borders. Our curiosity getting the best of us, Karla "went to the bathroom" to see what was going on. Mysteriously, none of the cabins next to ours had any bags or igloo coolers in them. That's strange, we saw about two-dozen of them go through the window. She walked through the whole train car and didn't see a single cooler.
Casa Dracula
I wondered if everyone was just helping out and somewhere there was a single man with 144 grocery bags in his cabin. Deciding that it was strange enough (and "eastern" enough) not to ask any more questions we returned to our book reading and iPod listening, though we were sure now that every bag held illicit drugs, and every cooler black-market organs on ice. The train passed through the Romania border without any complication, but I will never stop wondering where all those bags and coolers went. Shortly after entering Romania we were joined by a very tall man with (what else) an electric bass bag. He and I hit it off talking about basses, gigs, Romania, cruise ship entertainment, America, famous bassists, Jazz, College, etc. I let him listen to some of the music I've recorded on my iPod, he let me see his bass, it was truly awesome to be so far from home and feel like I'd instantly made a friend. I think Karla said ten words the whole rest of the trip, not that she was being reclusive, but she just didn't feel like commenting on Jaco's revolutionary use of artificial harmonics in the 1970's.
Before we knew it, we were in Sighisora.
We checked into the hostel, it was a really nice guesthouse with en-suite rooms. All of the guest rooms are semi-themed, or at least color-coded. Our room was the "love room" it was all shades of red with a hint of Japanese décor on the walls and a ill considered mirror as a headboard. Karla blushed and I hung my head and made a groaning noise when I saw the room.
Church
This is only the 16th or 17th time people have mistaken us for a honeymooning couple. I guess we just look really happy together. The impression was short lived when I flopped on the bed and nearly knocked myself out. Apparently the love room had been well loved as we could feel every spring in the mattress and the pillows were as fluffy as a brick wall. It's the thought that counts.Sighisora is a town of only 30,000. Tiny compared to all the cities we've been to up to this point. Located in a valley in northern Transylvania, its main attraction is it's 15th century citadel with the birthplace and childhood home of Vlad Tepes. You know him as Count Dracula. He was born in Sighisora in 1431 and lived there as a child before the invasion of the Turks. His castle where he did all his nasty deeds is in southern Romania South of Brasov. His birth house however, is still standing and in good condition. It's located next to the clock tower and has been turned into a restaurant. We were hungry when we arrived so we figured we might as well eat there. I couldn't help but feel like the family that traveled 8 hours in a cramped station wagon to see the world's largest frying pan, but here I was, in the childhood house of Dracula. I wondered what the city looked like back then, did the clock tower sound the same before its renovation, did his mom cook steaks as good as the chef that's working here currently? Maybe that's where he got his legendary taste for blood..... Anyway... I digress.
The meal was not that expensive but the biggest shock was at the end of the night when we called a taxi and the fare was only 4 Lei (Equal to $1.50 US).
citadel
That's the second cheapest cab I've ever been in. The first was an 8-mile ride in Trinidad and Tobago that cost $5TT (equal to $0.83 US). We arrived back at the love room and discovered that it was equipped with cable TV, how romantic. We became engrossed in Discovery Civilizations, a new channel that hasn't reached the states yet (to my knowledge) and entertained ourselves for the rest of the evening.Day 48 - I woke up with a terrible kink in my neck-hugging a brick wall all night will do that to you... After removing the stench from the 10-hour train ride we set off into the town. We got some more local money, found the post office, and took note of some places to eat for lunch. After the mandatory picture taking of all the sights we walked up the covered stairway to the highest point in the city where the Saxon church and graveyard are located. Most kings choose to put their palace or castle on top of the highest point in the town but for some reason in Transylvania, in the childhood home of Dracula, it seemed only fitting that a graveyard would occupy the best piece of real estate in the city. While walking through the graveyard we noticed that most of the headstones above the crypts listed several names. It looked like it spanned 3 to 4 generations. The only problem was the plot was only big enough for one coffin!?! Did they bury family members on top of each other? Was the old man buried deeper than the kids or were the new family members added to the original casket? This graveyard was getting creepier by the second, and it wasn't even dark outside.
Clock again
We exited back down the hill and had some pizza for lunch. The pizza menu described the pizza I was ordering as "cheese, sauce, ham, oregano". Pretty simple right? Well to my surprise, the sauce they refer to is actually barbecue sauce. Later we would research this and find that it's the same throughout the city. I don't know if there is a country-wide tomato paste shortage or if BBQ sauce is the preferred base for a pizza. After our unique meal we returned to our room for a short siesta and some Discovery Civilizations while a storm passed over the city. Six hours later, I had learned all about the history of the Mayans, how the Czar of Russia had been overthrown, the biography of Alfred Nobel and the rainstorm was still overhead. We decided to call a cab at that point, since it was the cheapest thing in town and totally not worth walking the distance in the rain. We asked our driver about places to eat and our options were limited. He said that Casa Dracula was the best place in town and so we returned for a second evening. This time getting two meals with drinks for less that $20 US. Not bad for the nicest place in town. After dinner we walked to a neat basement bar and frittered the rainy night away with pool and darts. We managed to each win one game of pool and draw on the game of darts so neither of us had to be a sore loser that evening.
Day 49 - Remember how there was only one train to get into Sighisora? Well it turns out that there is only one train to get AWAY from Sighisora, unless you're heading east to Brasov or Bucharest.
clock and steps
This train leaves at 9pm and travels through the night. So we were stuck in the city, yet checked out of our hotel. At least the weather cooperated today, it was sunny but there was a light breeze to keep you from sweating. Sighisora isn't very big so we had to be quite creative about what to do today. First we explored the white church by the bank of the river. We walked into the beautiful cathedral just in time to see the preacher handing out bread to the poor. There were a couple old men and a handful of women, some with children. Most of them were dressed rather nicely and didn't appear to be needing handouts, but who am I to be the judge of such things. Feeling like we had disturbed some deeply private event, we looked around briefly and left as discreetly as two American tourists in a Romanian church possibly could.
We walked up the hill again to the citadel, as we passed the other church we heard the organ being played inside. There was too much curiosity in an old organ actually being played so we paid the 2 lei each to go inside and listen. The church had been build and rebuilt a few times, the main building was from 1777 and I assumed the organ was from the same era. The guy playing was obviously practicing for a later service, but we appreciated being able to hear it none-the-less. After the church we went to climb the clock tower. To our surprise it's a museum as well. We became engrossed in all the displays and found ourselves at the top just in time to hear the 12 o'clock chime. There are glass panels at the top so you can see all the cogs and wheels spinning while the bells are ringing. At this moment I remembered just how unique this journey has been. I've never even been in a clock tower before, let alone seen the gears turning as it strikes twelve. Wait a minute, twelve o'clock! I didn't eat breakfast, it's lunch time! We went back down the hill to a pub and split another BBQ sauce pizza. Then began wandering... through the side streets, behind the citadel, and around the residential areas. We walked for a good hour and a half before we realized that we weren't on the road back to the city. 45 minutes later we navigated back in the town square and had completely explored every square inch of Sighisora, and it was only 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We spent the last of our money on groceries for the train ride and persuaded the man at the front desk of our hotel to let us sit in the lobby until our train came. They were pretty cool about it.
This was my first recent experience on a sleeper car and now that I have experienced it, I will never travel overnight without it. I will pay any price, the ability to lie horizontal while traveling for hours by train is invaluable. The power plug for my laptop only magnifies this value. I'm not sure weather I'm spoiling myself or just creating standards for which I prefer to travel. Regardless, sleeper cars are the way to go.
Comments
I'll be in Sighisora soon!
Hey! I'm a musician too! I'm delighted to see your pictures of Sighisora - I am in Romania as I type and I will probably be near sighisora sometime in the next couple days! It's nice to read about your travels!