After a couple not so great night sleeps in Bucharest, it was nice to wake up here in Brasov.

The bunk beds we have in the dorm room are extra big both in width and height so you can kind of sprawl out in the bed and have a good night’s sleep.   They even give you two pillows.   No hostel does that.

I really am liking it here in Brasov.

Time to tour the city…

Free Walking Tour

We met our tour guide, Andra, in the main square of Brasov at 10:30 for our two hour tour around the city.

Here’s some cool little tidbits we learned along the way…

Three nationalities:   There is a dispute about who was here first.   Was it the Romanians, the Germans, or the Hungarians?   They all have made Brasov their home over the years.   In fact, there are three distinct sections of Brasov representing all three nationalities.

Speaking of which, some street signs are actually written in Hungarian, German and Romanian which I thought was pretty cool.

Communist rations:   Andra also talked about how her mom told her stories of trading on the black market because of the communist rations.   The way they justified giving small rations to everyone was because the “experts” had determined that was what you needed for a healthy diet.

Of course, it wasn’t nearly enough and people would buy things like soap and bread on the black market and then trade with their relatives outside of the city for more food from their farms.

Lazy bears:   There is a huge bear population around the hills of the city.   So much so, that some people have treated them like pets, feeding them and leaving their garbages open.   Of course, now the bears have become lazy and relying on the food in town instead of fending for themselves in the wild.

Zigzagging:   The bears around the city have been tracked and chipped, so if one is within 2km of your location, the locals will receive a text message warning them of the situation.

Andra told us if you ever did see a bear, the best defense is to run in a zigzag pattern cause it’s harder for the bears to run after you and, you know, because they’re lazy, they’ll give up.

Also, if you shed your clothes, the bear will stop to smell your clothes.   So, if you ever encounter a naked man running around in a zigzag pattern in Brasov, now you know why.

Red wedding inspiration:   Inspiration for the infamous scene in the Game of Thrones was derived from real life events in Romania.   Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian, invited all the German and Hungarian nobles to his home for a feast.   After the feast, he locked the doors and burned his home down killing most of the noblemen.   A to think, that’s not even the most gruesome thing he’s known for!

Brasov mythology:   Alot of people around here still believe in the legends of werewolves, vampires and fairies.   Of course, people who have “seen” werewolves might have been drunk at the time and just saw a man wearing a wolf mask steeling sheep in the night.

So romantic!   The area behind the city walls where you’d meet your lover for a little bit of fun in the night was not so affectionately known as “the place behind the walls”.   I mean, that doesn’t really breed romance, does it?

Shitty river:   There is a river by the lane behind the walls that flows from the Romanian side of town to the German part.   When it rains, it tends to flood over onto the sidewalks.

Back in the day when their was no love lost between the different factions who claimed Brasov as their home, the Romanians would head to the river when it rained and dump their waste (like, literally, their waste) into the river so it’d flow down and flood the streets of the German area with their shit.

And on that note, on to lunch…

Lunch

During the tour, Andra went through different food items we should try while we were in Romania.   I had already tried most of them but she mentioned one I didn’t even know about.

So, for lunch, we went back to the restaurant from last night and, sure enough, there’s it was on the menu.

Bulz.

It’s polenta mixed with cheese and ham, baked in a pot, and topped with a fried egg.

Sounds good to me!

It came out in the pot and the outside of the polenta was crispy and the meal was soooo cheesy.

It actually took me quite a few chews to swallow some spoonfulls because there was so much cheese in there.   Not that I’m complaining!   It was fantastic!

After lunch, we stopped by a laundry place down the road to drop off my laundry to get picked up tomorrow before heading to the bus stop taking us to the Gare to board our 3pm bus to Bran Castle.

Bran Castle

The bus to Bran Castle takes about 45 minutes and I was fiddling on my phone most of the time.

I didn’t even realize we had arrived until we were at the bus stop and Nathan was telling me this was our stop.

I quickly gathered my things and got off the bus.

Yeah, it was the wrong bus stop…

Nathan had seen the “Welcome to Bran” sign so assumed that this was it even though the castle was marked on the map down the road.

Turns out that this was just the entrance to the city and the bus still continued upward to the another stop right outside the castle.

Oh well, it was a nice day for a walk anyway and it wasn’t too far, just a 25 minute walk.

I thought by coming to the castle in the afternoon, we’d miss all the tour groups and the castle would be tourist free like Peles Castle yesterday.

Yeah, not so much.

I mean, there were no tour groups, so we may have avoided that but there’s were tons of tourists.

Ugh.

Oh well, just gonna have to block them out and go explore the castle.

We bought a basic ticket for the castle (60lei, $20) plus the additional entries to the torture chamber (25lei, $7) and the time tunnel (10lei, $3).

Honestly, overall, the castle was kind of meh.   We both agreed that Peles castle yesterday was definitely better.

I’ve also visited so many castles now over my trips that they just don’t illicit that sense of wonderment and awe anymore.

Nevertheless, it was majestic and I took some really nice photos but if you had a choice between the two castles, I’d recommend Peleș Castle.   It looked better and it wasn’t even close to being as touristy as Bran Castle was.

After an hour, we were at the exit of the castle and heading to the bus stop to catch our bus home.

Late dinner

We got back to the hostel around 6:30 and decided to just relax for a bit before heading to dinner later.

Although it was pretty mild today (well, relatively, it was still 28C), I was pretty sticky simply from all the suntan lotion I had lathered on this morning.

The suntan lotion, by the way, as much as I hate having it on me, has worked wonders.   I’ve been out in pretty extreme sun the last week and a half and have no sunburns at all to report.

Anyway, time to get all the ick of of me.   A nice, long shower should do the trick!

At 9pm, we headed out to dinner in search of another Romanian delicacy I had yet to try.

Mititei.

It’s basically rolls of meet made of a mix of lamp and beef, served with potato and a cabbage salad.

It was delicious, of course, cause everything on this trip has been delicious so far.   Eastern Europeans know how to cook!

After dinner, I was faced with the task of restructuring the next couple of days.   I had planned everything out before I left for the trip but there were a few things over the next few days I needed to tweak as we head into Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria.

I figured out some of it but, by then, it was midnight and I was tired and I have an early day tomorrow.

Yup, tomorrow, I’m going on a day trip to the medieval town of Sighisoara.   Can’t wait!