Escaping to the Transylvanian town of Brasov

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Well after the bit of a shaky start of our Romania trip, we got on the train (1st class cabin) and arrived in Brasov. Brasov is very different from Bucharest; it felt safer, people were friendlier and less likely to take your money, and everything was green, clean and picturesque. I guess this is why every Romanian I've spoken to has said "DON'T GO TO BUCHAREST!"

Brasov is located in the Transylvanian mountains about 2.5 hours by train from Bucharest. The mountains right in the city are very green and wooded; not too high. But beyond those mountains within the city limits are huge rocky mountains, and a bunch of ski resorts. Apparently a very cheap and popular place for European skiers.

Brasov plays a part in the legend of the pied piper of Hamelin. Remember the story? The pied piper uses his magic pipe to lure rats away from Hamelin. When the city doesn't compensate him for his efforts, he lures the children away forever instead. Well, legend has it that the pied piper took these children from Hamelin on a long underground hike, and they surfaced in the main square in Brasov, called Piata Sfatului.

When we arrived in Brasov, our first task was to find a place to stay for a few nights. We thought Brasov was a good home base to explore other regions around. When we exited the train, we were immediately approached by a man offering up his place to stay. We were hesitant at first; this doesn't happen very often in Canada. But a friend of mine had told me about this being a common occurrence in Brasov's train station, as well the guidebook even mentioned the guy's name along with a few others who might try to offer you accomodation at the station. So we thought that this wasn't too risky, so we arranged to stay at his hostel. The place was called Hostel Gabriel (Gabriel being the name of the guy who recruited us), for you future travelers. They even bought us bus tickets to get to their hostel from the train station, but we didn't use them because we missed the bus, so they called a friend to pick us and his wife up. His name was Niko and he was a very funny and seemed to love joking around!

The hostel was a ways from the train station but only a 15 minute walk from the centre of the old town. The owners were so incredibly nice and helpful. They organized tours for us (well more like they hired their friends to drive us places, which was even better!) and gave us a map and very clear recommendations of where to eat and what to visit. At the hostel, they gave us a little apartment for the 3 of us and it only cost us 157 lei (equivalent to approximately $50 Canadian total) per night. I bought a third night and they were nice enough to only make me pay 120 Lei for just myself (approx 35 CAD). They were such nice hosts and really loved to chat with us. You can see that they really care. They offered us a shot of a traditional drink called Tuica. It wasnt too bad at all!

After settling in, we had a few hours in the afternoon to explore Brasov. Brasov was a Saxon settlement established during the medieval period. It's quite a large, touristic town that is nestled within the mountains and has a beautiful historic baroque fortified centre. The fortifcations can still be seen, although not entirely intact. The town actually has a real German or bavarian feel to it.

The first thing we did in the afternoon was take the tram up to the top of mount Tampa, which had beautiful views of the city. The path to the viewpoint led us behind the Brasov's big hollywood type sign. At this point it was sunny, so the mountains and city just looked magnificent up there. There wasn't much else to do up there so we went back down. Then as the rain started and then stopped, we visited the black church and then explored town a bit more. The significance of the Black Church is that it was supposedly the largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul, and that it is black due to a huge city-fire started in 1689 by the Austrian army.

We also walked up to this other little citadel on a small hill just outside the main part of town, called Cetatuia. Cetatuia is part of the town's outer fortification system. Now the citadel has a restaurant in it, which was highly recommended to us, but we never made it there. Once we got up to the citadel it starting pouring like crazy, and completely caught us off guard. I was the only one with a rain jacket and even that didn't help. At first, we tried to take shelter for awhile under the rampart entrance but it wouldnt let up. We then tried to run from shelter to shelter within the citadel, but eventually ran out of overhanging roofs, so all we could do was a very quick run around the citadel and then we scurried back down to Brasov for dinner. We had made reservations for a authentic Romanian restaurant called Sergiana, and we arrived there soaking wet! The good news is that we each spent about 40 Lei ($12) on dinner (shared appetizer, drinks, large main course and desert). Crazy cheap, but really great food! After dinner we headed home to bed because we had a busy day ahead of us!

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Photos

Church of St. Nicholas
I love this church: it's absolutely beautiful. It's a Romanian Orthodox Church (the first to be built in Transylvania) located in Piata Unirii. I think there was a wedding going on there this day.

Piata Unirii
Such a beautiful square. On the left of the church is the first Romanian-language school, from the 14th century.

Piata Sfatului (Council Square)
One view of the main square of the old town

Behind the Brasov sign
Just like in Hollywood.... although I don't think it's as easy to get up to the top and behind that sign!

View from the top of Mount Tampa
You can see all the mountains surrounding Brasov

Posing as Romanian hunters in the Hunter's Tower
This is part of the town's fortified walls