Road trip in Romania

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Romania, Day 1



We started our road trip in Romania July 30. The flight from Helsinki, Finland, took off at 10 am and about 2 hours and 30 minutes later we arrived at Bucuresti. We had rented a car, a true Romania "automobil" Dacia Logan 1.4 MDI, from Active Rent a Car (www.active-rentacar.ro). It wasn't a sports car but served its purpose and had an AC, the most wanted accessory during this hot summer season in Romania!


We headed out from Otopeni airport towards Brasov. We followed the highway 1 (E60) and tried to get use to Romanian way of driving! It could be characterized as reckless, crazy and risky. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Temperature was reaching 30. The AC was truely needed! The landscape was nice; neverending weat fields, green hills and high mountains, the road winding between the hills.


We passed a city called Ploiesti and about 2 hours later we stopped at a small town called Sinaia and looked for a castle called Peles (read more about it from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele%C5%9F_Castle or Brasov Travel Guide at http://www.brasovtravelguide.ro/en/brasov/surroundings/peles-castle.php). Sinaia is about 45 km south from Brasov on highway 1. A tip: when driving from Bucuresti take the road through town center. It is the only way to see the sign "Castle Peles". The stop was worth making! The castle is beautiful. We didn't visit inside the castle (missed the opening hours) but took a tour with our camera around the yard and garden.


We had booked a hotel at Sacele, a small town close to Brasov. Our pension was called Bellavista (http://www.bellavista.ro/eng_index.php) and it was a very nice place to stay over night. The room was clean and spacious, the bathroom was big and newly renovated. In addition we had a nice balcony with a beautiful view over the town of Sacele. The hotel owner spoke English well and she was very friendly and helpful. The pension was kind of tricky to find but little "Bellavista" signs on the side of the road engouraged us to keep on driving up the hill.


We drove to Brasov for late night supper. We found a nice restaurant in the city center and had delicious grilled chicken dinner. Local Romanian wines and beer are worth tasting! It was a perfect ending to our adventurous first day in Romania! 😊

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Photos

The Castle of Peles
The Castle of Peles in Sinaia

Sinaia
The view from our balcony over Sinaia