Brasov

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So my original intention was to stay in Brasov for 1 night...unfortunately I hadn't reckoned on it being the second biggest city in Romania so instead I stayed for 2, taking me off my schedule already.

When you get in to Brasov from the station you are greeted by a literal concrete jungle that spreads all the way to the Carpathians but once you get past that (about 10 minutes into my bus ride to the hostel) you get to the old town which is a higgledy piggledy mass of red tiled houses with lots of little churches. Luckily that was the bit I was staying at.

Brasov sits at the bottom of Mt Tampa and is dominated by a huge Hollywood-style Brasov sign perched on top and on the other side the White Tower which is a remodeled fortification from the old city walls. In the middle sits the Black Church, so-called due to the way it looked after the city had a great fire centuries ago. Other than that there's not too much to say other than walking around the new town after dark is not for the faint hearted. I lasted about half an hour before deciding it would be a far safer option to run back to the rest of the tourists.

While I was in Brasov I caught the bus out to Bran, which took me to the infamous Castle Bran, home of Dracula. Castle Bran overlooks the village and looks like something out of a Hammer Horror film with the little market below it selling a seemingly non stop supply of various Dracula memorabilia. So it's a little disappointing when you realise that it has absolutely no link to Vlad Tepes at all.

Pictures will come soon but this internet cafe seems to block anything being downloaded...I guess that's Eastern European computers for you, the one's we chucked out years ago so they need all the memory they can get!!!

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