Today Nathan and I did separate things.   I had a day trip to Sighisoara planned and Nathan stayed back here in Brasov to explore the city.

I woke up at 7am for a very early start to the day.   There was a 3 hour train ride in front of me to get to Sighisoara.

By 7:30, I was out the door on my way to the train station.   It was a nice, cool 18C when I left and the forecast was for rain, which I was actually kind of looking forward to after all this heat the last week or so.

Grabbing food was out of the question as restaurants didn’t open until 8am and I was in a bit of a time crunch anyway.   I did stop by a little convivence store to grab a small pack of salami (my go to snack ever since I became gluten intolerant) on the way however.

At just before 9am I board the train.   I had splurged an bought a first class ticket for an extra $10 figuring it would be a nicer seat and maybe less people would buy them so there’d be less people around me.

I hopped on the first class carriage and went to my assigned seat (#91) only to find a little cubicle thing with 8 seats in it filled with 7 people.   My seat was waiting for me in the corner.

Ah, nope.

I backtracked down the car and found the first empty seat I could find.

It actually was a pretty nice seat, pretty wide, and a little table in front of me.

As the train was down the tracks, I spotted the seat number on the ceiling.   It was #91.   How I randomly picked seat 91 in the other carriage is beyond me but I did.

I thought about it later and it’s possible I mistook the other seat for my seat and the seat I ended up in was actually my assigned first class seat that I randomly sat in.

Either way, it was a comfy seat in a comfy train.

Success!

Arriving in Sighisoara

We pulled into Sighisoara at just after noon.

The rain that was forecast was nowhere to be found.   Turns out I had brought my umbrella in my daypack for no reason.

Luckily I still had my sunscreen in there because I needed to slather myself up again.   It was hot and the sun was beating down on me.

I will say, as a tourist, I have no shame alot of the time.   I literally lathered myself up right there in the train station in front of everybody.   I didn’t care, I needed to protect my poor little noggin.

In other trips, I’ve had heatstroke, a severe sunburn, and had to get replenished with an IV because of dehydration.   I’m taking this stuff serious on this trip!

It was either a half hour walk or 5 minute taxi into town.   I chose the taxi because it was only 13ron which is about $4 and, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but it was hot out.

Of course, getting the taxi driver to understand where I wanted to go was another matter.

I would think the taxi drivers here just constantly transported tourists back and forth from the train station to the city gates of the old town so they even if they didn’t speak English, if they saw a tourist, they would know where I wanted to go.

But, noooooo…

The first taxi I saw was dropping off other people, so when they got out, I asked him if he spoke English.

Naturally, he didn’t so I tried to show him a Google translate of “How much to go to the city from here?”, and then he waved me to where there was a taxi stand below the station.

Okey doke.

I went to the taxi stand and went through the same thing except, even with showing him the translation, he still had no idea where I was going.

I mean, there’s literally one tourist attraction here and I’m obviously a tourist – where the hell do you think I want to go?!?

I finally showed him the map on my phone with all the map pointers on it and zoomed in to see if he recognized where I wanted to go.

He saw the word Citadel on one of them and he finally clued in where I wanted to go.

Success!

In the cab I went and, 5 minutes later, I was in the Old Town.

The Old Town itself is pretty small with everything within a 20 minute walk of each other so, even though I only had 2 1/2 hours, I felt like it was plenty of time to see everything.

That being said, my first stop was for lunch cause I was starving.

I v-lined for Vlad Dracul restaurant.   There were a few different choices in town but I had previously marked this on the map because their menu showed allergens for their menu items.

For lunch how could I not get the Dracula Stew?   I mean, c’mon.   I was in a Dracula themed restaurant in Transylvania – was there really any other choice for lunch?

I also finally saw a dessert I could have!   A banana split.

So I ordered both and soon my entrée came out.

It was so big and so rich.

I will say, the Romanians know how to cook.   Of course, all the meals are very heavy and meat based so they fill you up good.

Anyway, as my waitress was clearing away my lunch, I let her know that I was too full for dessert.

I guess that got lost in translation because as I waited and waited for my check, she finally reappeared with my banana split.

Welp.

Guess I’m having dessert…

Wandering around

After lunch, I headed out into the town and just kind of wandered around in different directions looking at various buildings and snapping photos here and there.

I did notice that the old town is 100% catered for tourists.   There was either stores or restaurants and every store was a souvenir shop.

Thankfully, while touristy, it was as crazily filled with them like Bran Castle was yesterday.

The last stop in town was atop the big hill.   To get there I had to climb at least 100 steep stairs enclosed in a wooden structure which made it like a hotbox.

By the time I was at the top of the hill, I was just drenched.   Like I said, I would have welcomed rain today.

Anyway, the view from atop the hill was definitely worth the climb.

Eventually my time in the Old Town had come to a close as it was time to grab a taxi back to the train station.

Of course, getting out of there was a bit of a maze for me.   I would follow the markings on my online maps but I got to a point where I couldn’t figure out how to get to the level below where the exit was.

The ride home

I finally figured it out and landed outside the walls and, just as I was about to pull out my map on my phone to see where the main gate was where I could find a taxi, one magically appeared right in front of me dropping someone off.

Sweet!

Success!

This time the taxi driver understand what I wanted and headed to the bus station.

Yes, I was catching a bus back into Brasov.

It was cheaper and took less time so it seemed like a no brainer.

What I didn’t expect, however, was that the “bus” was really a mini van seating 8 people and the ride was on a long, windy road all the way back in to Brasov.

I also had a seat in the middle row right behind the passenger seat and that seat just happened to have nowhere to stretch out my legs.   By the end of the bus ride, my left knee was killing me and I was so thankful to be out of the van so I could stretch out my poor little legs.

Dinner time

I was finally back at the hostel at 7pm and, after a nice long shower, Nathan and I headed out into the Brasov night in search of dinner.

There was a big, loud concert in the main square so we walked the other way looking for somewhere just a bit quieter so we could actually hear ourselves talk while eating.

We walked for a bit looking for a place and finally found one with a picture of glazed bbq ribs on their menu on the wall.

Sold!

We sat down and ordered our meal.   We were both having ribs.

And then, the waitress said words you don’t want to hear when you have your heart set on something…

“Oh, I think we’re out of ribs”

Nooooooooooo!

She walked away to check and Nathan and I just looked at each other and laughed.

In the end, they weren’t out of ribs so we got what we were looking forward to.

The restaurant also had a banana split on their menu too and I contemplated getting a second one today.

I asked Nathan if he was having dessert and he said no so I decided I’d pass on it too.

And then a few minutes later, I was like, you know what, I want dessert dammit!

So I ordered it…

Yeah, they were out of it.

Lolololololololol

Okay, then…

And that’s how our night ended.

Overall, it was kind of an easy day even with the long trips to and from Sighisoara.   Was it worth it to go to the town?   Probably not, but it definitely was nice to have an easy day so I’ll take it.

Tomorrow, we head back into Bucharest for one night before we make our trip over the border to Bulgaria and the city of Veliko Tarnovo the next day.

Time for more adventure…