Brasov #3: Bran Castle, Rasnov Fortress, and Harman and Prejmer Fortified Churches

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After how long it took me to get breakfast the day before, I played it safe and headed to McDonald's to get something quick and easy. It wasn't that quick though, I ended up waiting about ten minutes for my food to be ready. Hash brown, muffin, and coffee were fine, and once finished I headed round to the bus station for my trip around some of the famous sights of the region. We left around 9 am. Another score for off peak travel as there were only three of us on the trip. We drove for about an hour. It was nice to drive through the valley basin seeing all the mountains around the edges. We passed through small towns and sleepy little villages. I really like all the brightly painted houses, just makes everything so much more aesthetically pleasing. Our first stop was the infamous Bran Castle. We got there for opening time, so it was quiet. We walked through the market stalls set up for tourists to buy tat and after buying tickets at the ticket office headed up the path to the castle.

Bran Castle is famous for 'Dracula', the novel by Bram Stoker. Stoker had never visited Romania and it is thought that he saw a picture or read a description of Bran Castle in a book. It obviously made a great impression on him. In the novel, Dracula is a Transylvanian Count, who has a castle perched high on a rock. Most people think that Dracula is Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler aka Vlad Dracul, who was prince in Wallachia, a different part of present day Romania. He only had the most tenuous links to the castle, having stayed there once or twice. I had read horror stories about how busy Bran Castle can be, but since we had got there shortly after opening time and it was the dead of winter, it was totally empty when I walked in. The castle dates back to the 13th century. I wandered around the rooms of the castle. I had come with no expectations as I had read a lot of things online about the place being totally overrated. I think this really helped as later talking to someone else they said that they were really disappointed with their visit. I was quite surprised at how small the castle and its rooms were. It wasn't very grand. It was also bloody freezing. My toes were totally numb as I was walking around, I hoped that when the royal families lived there, they had the heating and fires cranked in winter, or it would have been a pretty miserable place to live. There were some nice views of the surrounding area, and I liked the view of the inner courtyard. It was pretty small, but very pretty. Walking back down the hill, I took a walk around the lower parts of the ground. The snow covering everything made it look so pretty. I still had some time before we were due to meet up, so I made my way to the very posh cafe/restaurant at the base of the castle. This place had the heat cranked and it was nice to warm up with a hot drink.

The drive to Rasnov was nice and I enjoyed seeing more of day to day life in a more rural part of Romania. We parked up at the bottom of the hill. There was a little shuttle bus/train up the hill, but we decided to walk. I think we all just wanted to do some exercise to try and walk up and get the blood pumping around our bodies. Our guide said the walk would take about twenty minutes, but I think we did it in about ten, I was on a mission to stay warm. After paying the entrance fees, our guide left us and we were free to explore Rasnov Fortress. The fortress was built in the 13th century and lay on an important trading route between Transylvania and Walachia. It was not only a fortress but also a place of refuge for local people in the area. Since it was a place of refuge, houses and school were built within the fortress. In the outer grounds of the fortress, there were the foundation walls of a small church. I walked past this and up the drive to the main part of the fortress. I headed to the highest part of the fortress, which seemed to be where most people congregated. Up here, there were amazing views of the surrounding area. I could see the towns and villages in the valleys below and also see the tree covered mountains. The views were just beautiful. There was one random bloke singing the Romanian national anthem, which was a bit annoying as he seemed to be more of an attention seeker than anything else. I then took a walk around the rest of the fortress. I was quite surprised at how extensive it was. There were ruins of what would have been small one room houses. There was a school building, which I wished had been open. I really liked the area at the back of the fortress as I could imagine it being as bustling place with people coming and going, and doing their business. There were some great views on this side as well. Quite a few of the buildings had been turned into souvenir shops and seeing the things on display nicely added to the fortress, it stopped it just being an old ruin.

After my walk back down the hill, I was ready for lunch. There were only a couple of restaurants around the carpark. One looked rather fancy, so I opted for the other one. It was quite a rustic looking place and sold lots of traditional Romanian dishes. I hadn't tried any soups yet and soups make up a large part of Romanian cuisine, so I ordered Ciobra de Burta (tripe soup), I got a big verbal thumbs up from the waiter for my choice. I really didn't know what to expect, tripe doesn't exactly sounds appealing, but I have probably eaten worse, such as cows' vocal cords, and I may have even eaten tripe before in ignorance. I tucked into my bowl of soup and was really rather surprised at how good it was. Tripe soup for the win. It was really creamy and had a strong taste of sour cream. I had ordered some extra sour cream and a green pepper on the suggestion of the waiter, along with some bread. I didn't really know how I was meant to eat the pepper, so I just dipped it in the sour cream and munched on it. Thankfully, it was hot, but not too hot.

Back in the van, we drove to the first fortified church in Harman. We did a quick pit-stop so that we could take a photo of the Rasnov sign, it is basically a carbon copy of the Brasov sign minus the B adding an N, and the addition if the fortress behind it. I didn't really know much about these fortified churches, but they are of special importance in Romania and there are 25 of them on the UNESCO World Heritage Site. I liked seeing the kids using the moat area around the fortified church as a sledding place. It looked like they were having a lot of fun. While paying in the office, we were given information books to take with us as we walked around. The fortified church was built in the 15th century, I think. I really like walking around the inner walls of the church. The snow made it look really, really pretty, and I liked seeing the church, in the centre, from different angles. I also took a walk around the inside of the fortified walls. It was bloody cold, but I liked looking out at the town of Harman and trying to imagine how it looked in the past. Some of the rooms on the lower level displayed what life was like in the past, so I had a look around those. There was also a museum, but I didn't have time to look around it. I made my way across to the entrance of the church. The church was quite stark inside and since there wasn't too much to see, I made my way up to the bell tower. I have climbed quite a few towers on this trip. At least this set of stairs was enclosed so it wasn't as cold as the one in Transnistria. I definitely got a bit of a workout with all the stairs. I can't remember much about the views from the top, so maybe this was more for exercise than for views. It was nice to get back to the ticket office afterwards and warm up for a bit and see all the cute kitties that were chilling there.

We drove to Prejmer Fortified Church, another fortified church that wasn't too far away. Normally, this church would just be viewed from the outside on this trip, but since our group was so small, we had made it around the other sights with plenty of time still, so we were able to enter the church. When paying the entrance fee the woman in the office was quick to remind us that the church shut in thirty minutes. The church is a Lutheran church and it was founded by the Teutonic Knights before being taken over by the Transylvanian Saxon community. It had originally been Roman Catholic church but changed to Lutheran during the Reformation. The church was built in the thirteenth century. After walking through the barbican into the inner courtyard, I was quite surprised at how different it looked from the previous fortified church. I had expected it to be a carbon copy, but this one was a lot bigger and seemed to have more levels. The wall rooms looked to me like prison cells. I took a walk around the outside of the church before heading inside. The church was quite bare in keeping with the Lutheran style. I think I prefer more ornate churches, as not being religious, it gives me more to look at. Back outside, I climbed up the stairs to look inside some of the wall rooms, since the lights weren't on, I couldn't see much of the displays. I did start to walk around the inner perimeter of the wall, but decided to give up after a few hundred metres as it was a little creepy up there by myself (I did have the feeling that I could be playing the victim of serial killer in a horror film) and I was worried that I wouldn't make it all the way around in time and I would be locked in the church. I think I was right, as I was the last to leave the church and the guard locked up after me and headed off to his car, which was parked in front of the church. I knew nothing about these fortified churches before my visit, so it was nice to visit them and learn about something new. The drive back to Brasov took about 40 minutes. We drove through some of the newer, more Soviet looking estates. To me they just looked like Chinese housing estates.

For dinner, I wandered the streets for a while. I had wanted Romanian food, but lots of the restaurants looked really busy, so I kept looking for somewhere more quiet. I came across an Italian place and since I hadn't had a pizza for a week or so, I thought why not? The place, Kowlun, was dead when I arrived. I had a look through the menu and ordered a four cheese pizza and a glass of rose. I really, really enjoyed the pizza when it arrived. It was very cheesy and tasty. I loved the flavours of the different cheeses, especially the blue cheese. Thankfully, I still had some room in my stomach and could fit in a dessert. I had seen Papanași on the menu and since falling in love with them in Sibiu, I was eager to have them again. At this restaurant, however, they didn't just do the regular ones, but also did chocolate Papanași. I had to order them to see how they compared to the normal ones. This dessert seems to take a while to prepare as I had time to digest my pizza and drink more wine before they turned up. This is definitely not the dessert for someone on a diet. The fried doughnuts were covered with sour cream and heaps of nutella. They were utterly amazing! My love affair with Papanași continues.

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