Transylvania was the perfect jump back into our Eastern European trip. Like I mentioned in a previous post, it’s one of those places I thought I would only read about. Bucharest was fun, but I was more interested in seeing the small Gothic towns of Romania. Brasov was our first stop.
We flew into Bucharest from the Netherlands and took a train headed North.
Our 2.5 hour train ride turned into 7 hours. Hardly anyone spoke English and the only info we could get was ‘accident’. We had a lot of time to kill.
Crazy 8 Count DownDay one didn’t go past noon before we found ourselves in a tattoo shop. We were looking to get tattoos in Amsterdam, but it was wickedly expensive. We took a quick browse through their work and decided to just go for it. The shop looked remarkably clean and the Heavy Metal dudes, that ran the shop, seemed stoked to have us. How bad could a ridiculously cheap Transylvanian tattoo really be?
Neil went first
The day a new chapter beganThe rest of the day was spent checking out the sites. The first point of interest was Biserica Neagră or Black Church. The latter name was due to a fire in 1689. Unfortunately, like most other churches, they did not allow photography. We snapped some photos of the outside. Still impressive.
Both towers had a million rickety old stairs that made me realize just how out of shape I really was. The view was totally worth it.
The city itself didn’t have a lot of typical tourist sites. It didn’t need to. Just being there was the experience. Most of the streets were cobblestone surrounded by buildings literally built hundreds of years ago during the Gothic Era.
Literally the weirdest statue everLittle ‘ol baba’s sold $1 ice cream and homemade crafts in the popular walking square. Flocks of swallows dive bombed tourists enjoying their coffee in one of many cafes along the main walking street. The smell of fresh popcorn filled the air; only $0.50 a bag.
I loved it! This was the Romania I was looking for; trapped in time. Now all I needed was Dracula…..