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Published: July 10th 2017
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Brasov
Evening in Sfatului Square with Mt Tampa in the background My Lonely Planet guide had warned us of the dangers of being ripped off by taxi-drivers and indeed one such rip-off merchant charged us 50 lei (£10), for a short ride from one area of Bucharest to another. It should have cost 15 lei max but we didn't know it at the time. It was only when Lynn and I took a taxi from the old town to the railway station, with a similar journey time, and were charged 12 Lei that it dawned on us. Romania is due to join the euro in a few years' time but in the meantime its own currency is the norm in everyday transactions although a lot of hotels are quoting prices in euros. One Lei is 20 pence and you can appreciate how low the cost of living is when on our first evening in Bucharest Lynn and I enjoyed a two course meal with wine for just under 50 Lei a head.
However, with this warning fresh in our minds, we failed to assert ourselves later that day! Our next destination was Brasov in southern Transylvania, a three hour train journey from Bucharest where Lynn had booked us a room in
Brasov
Daytime in the square, the heart of medieval Brasov an old hotel in the old medieval part of town. When we arrived at the station, a young taxi driver, approached us before we got to the queue of taxis and bundled our cases into the back. On our arrival, less than ten minutes later, he demanded 100 Lei which after a furious argument we foolishly paid, just to get rid of him. Lesson number two, always check to see if there is a meter in the cab! We weren't caught again!
Fortunately we struck gold with our room at the Casa Wagner, a former 15th century German bank, now boutique hotel, which overlooked the wide square of the old town ringed with cafés. In one corner stood the Black Church and on the square itself was the council house topped by a Trumpeter's Tower. It now houses the historical museum. On Mount Tampa above the town stood huge white letters spelling Brasov, very much Hollywood-style, which was illuminated at night.
The old town was established by Teutonic Knights in the 13th century and became a German mercantile colony called Kronstadt. Some say it's because from above the layout of the old town is like a crown. (Judge
Brasov
Part of the city wall for yourself from the aerial photo I took from the top.) They built ornate churches and pretty townhouses protected by a 12 m-high wall to defend the city from Turkish attacks. The Romanians lived in a separate settlement called Schei outside the walls and had to pay to enter and sell their wares!
Seven bastions were also raised around the city wall at the most exposed points, each tower defended by a different trade guild. We learned this on our guided walk round the city that evening with an enthusiastic if loquacious Romanian guide. I bailed out after an hour as I thought I had lost my camera; (it transpired I had left it in the hotel) but Lynn hung on for another 90 minutes emerging exhausted but more informed than I was. Her handy-dandy TripAdvisor app found us a nearby restaurant in a cellar with local food which soothed frayed nerves. Romanians eat a lot of polenta, smoother than the gritty variety I buy, and pork- based meals. Their wine, as long as you don't buy the cheapest variety, is also very acceptable and Lonely Planet says Romania is the world's ninth biggest wine producer!
Our hotel
Brasov
Schei Gate was charging 11 euro for breakfast so we popped into a cafe next door and spent a third of that on croissants and coffee. The weather continued sweltering and I found I was suffering from hay fever so had to stock up on antihistamines before embarking on day two. Having gotten our bearings the previous evening, we spent the day walking round the walls, visiting the Weavers' Bastion and then taking the cable car up to Mount Tampa and walking to the Brasov sign on the hillside. The Weavers' Bastion was fascinating with its three tiered gallery around the inner courtyard. Inside the small museum was a model of Brasov in the 17th century and lots of artefacts, the most interesting of which was a pair of pincers which was used to grab huge pieces of cut stone to build the Black Church. We had noticed pock marks on the outside walls of the church the previous day and I had thought they were bullet holes! A woodcarving on the gates of the bastion also showed the tool hung on a pulley in action.
We had taken in the Black Church the day before, is so called because of
Brasov
Gate into Weavers' Bastion with cousin Lynn a fire in 1689 which blackened the exterior. It is apparently the largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul and is used today by a small congregation of German Lutherans. Most Romanians are Eastern Orthodox and there was a very pretty orthodox church near our hotel. No mosques in Brasov but we passed a synagogue where a group visiting from Israel were conducting a ceremony by the small but powerful holocaust memorial outside. The families of many of the group would have originally come from Romania. Later on in our trip, we were given the horrific statistics of how many Jews died in the holocaust and how the number of active synagogues are very few with the Jewish population in Romania numbering just over 3,000.
So lots of walking that day, broken up by breaks for ice cream, beer and finally an apéritif in one of the outdoors cafe before our evening meal. It was lovely seeing all the families walking around the square, sitting by the fountain or feeding the hoards of pigeons which populated the square. They certainly don't seem to have the same attitude as we do to such huge numbers of these nuisances flying above
Brasov
Woodcut on Gate showing pincers your head.
The next day we were to pick up our hire car in the modern part of town so we had a relatively early night and packed our cases, sorry to have to leave our beautiful spacious room with its painted beams and traditional furniture. Our first stop was to be Bran Castle, prototype for Count Dracula's home, our only nod to popular culture!
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Jackie Harrison
non-member comment
Brasov
I think you need a great imagination to see that the layout of the old town is like a crown!!