Sinaia day 10-11 (June 16-17) Our train was running late, but finally it arrived and we headed off on an hour and half’s journey to a mountain resort town of Sinaia. We were warned that hiking here should only be done with a guide due to the prevalence of bears. Romania has the largest population of bear and wolves in Europe. The weather was wet again but undeterred we headed up the hills in the rain to visit the local monastery and a renowned castle. The castle was built relatively recently in terms of castles and had been furnished rather ornately with wood carvings and Venetian coloured crystal. The nearby winter residence was much more tasteful in a more art nuveau style. Dinner that night was at a restaurant near the top of the mountain. On ... read more

Sibiu day 7-8 (June 13-14) A return trip in our van with the wooden bench seat to Sighisoura where we caught a local mini bus to Sibiu. The bus was packed but we arrived in good time our driver handling the crazy overtaking of other vehicles. A taxi took us to a hotel a bit out of town, so we would need to relay on taxi’s to get us around. A visit to the local art museum, and a walk around the old town was the order of the afternoon. Sibiu had recently been the European Capital of Culture and so was looking pretty pristine. The following day we had a full schedule, taking a private van to a glacial lake in the nearby mountains. The road up the mountain was pretty windy, but worth the ... read more

Maramures Day 3-4 (June 9-10) A bus journey to Debrecen was next where we had a few hours to spend before catching the train. This was a surprisingly large town on the Hungarian border. It was a very hot day, and we were happy to sit at a café for a long lunch, only making a brief foray into the nearby square. Catching the train from Debrecen and finally crossing out of the Schengen area into Romania. The border crossing was fairly painless and I made sure they had stamped my passport to show I had left Schengen (very important for the rest of my travels). The countryside quickly differed from the Hungarian open planes, becoming much more hilly and treed (is this a word?). We were met at the station by a private van, taking ... read more

Budapest Day 16-21 (June 2-7) It was another morning of increasingly larger trains for our journey to Budapest our last stop of the trip. Time for sourcing more currency this time the Florin (twelfth currency from 14 countries visited). We had a short orientation walk and then headed down to view the Danube. It is really wide at this point and crossed by many impressive bridges. The main one being the chain bridge. On the Buda side of the river stands the castle/palace (now used as a gallery) and on the Pest side is the very impressive Parliament building. Budapest has many magnificent buildings, some cleaned and renovated and others waiting to be. It is a city that is warm and somehow welcoming because it hasn’t been pristinely cleaned up yet (it appears to have once ... read more

Krakow Day 12-13 (May 29-30) From Auswich it was a short trip into Krakow. I was very impressed with this city. It is a university town, and still thinks of itself as the important city in Poland (a rivalry exists between Krakow and Warsaw much like the Melbourne and Sydney one). The old town of Krakow has turned it’s the area that had been it’s fortification walls into parks, so now there is a wonderful green band around the outside. Inside there is of course the square which is a nice open one. A church at the entrance, has a wonderful tale involving the blowing of a bugle on the hour. Apparently, the tower is used also to watch for fires, and even today the firemen man the church tower. When Krakow was being invaded by ... read more