Following the Herd Down to Greece

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Wednesday 21^stJune



Vampire Camping Bran



Romania customs after crossing the Danube was a slow affair as each vehicle was thoroughly checked and our passport and van documents thoroughly examined. We bought a vignette for seven days and headed to the mountains and the small town of Bran. Initially the landscape of the Danube delta was flat with fields of sunflowers in full bloom interspersed with wheat and other crops. At the pretty town of Campulung, the road started to climb and deteriorate. Road improvements meant frequent stops at temporary traffic lights. Then the storm started and road flooded with the torrential rain. Impatient Romanian drivers and huge articulated lorries added to the excitement as did the fact that the temperature had dropped dramatically from 32 degrees to 14 degrees resulting in a very steamed up windscreen. Once the weather cleared (and the windscreen), the views of the mountains and valleys were spectacular. Ten hours after leaving Bulgaria, we eventually arrived in the town of Bran and Vampire camping. It was raining again when we arrived and we were hungry, tired and a little bit grumpy. The town is very touristy with people arriving to visit Castle Bran and the Piatra Cratului National park.



Thursday 22th June



The sun was shining today and we spent a leisurely morning doing so washing and moving to a pitch with some shade. In the afternoon we walked through the town, hit the cash point to draw out some Romanian Leu’s and then headed to Castle Bran. Just before the entrance is a tourist market with stalls filled with every kind of tourist tat imaginable. The castle sits on a rocky outcrop at a narrowing of the valley. It was initially a fortress built in 1211. In 1377 permission was granted to build a castle on the site and was completed 10 years later. In 1459 Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes, sometimes known as Vlad Dracul) was allied with Bran and the nearby town of Brasov during his first reign. In 1920 the people of Romania gave the castle to Princess Maria (great granddaughter of Queen Victoria and born in Kent) and the castle was renovated and used as a summer residence by the Royal family. In 1938 when the queen died the castle went to her one of her daughters, Princess Ileana who in 1948 was forced to leave the country by the new communist regime and handed the castle over to the people of Romania. It was restored to its legal heirs in 1990.



Because the castle is the only one to fit the description in Bram Stokers novel Dracula and Vlad Tepes is thought to be the inspiration for Dracula and has tenuous links to the castle, it has become known as Dracula’s castle. In reality, it is a lovely quirky little place built around a central courtyard with floors of polished wood and rooms linked by small staircases taking you up and down through a labyrinth of rooms. I loved it.



Friday 23^rd June



Today we cycled to the village of Zanesti, paid our entrance fee for the Piatra Cratului National park and then walked up to the Curmatura refuge through beech forest. The refuge overlooks a beautiful alpine meadow and is home to a huge but very cute Carpathian mountain dog. We stopped for lunch there, sheltering from the rain. Returning to Zanesti, we walked through a deep narrow canyon with sheer limestone walls. It rained on our cycle ride back. At one point, we took the wrong turning and ended up on a dead end road in the less desirable end of town being chased by dogs but eventually found the right road.



Saturday 24^th June



We drove to a small village called Carta today. We had planned to visit Brasov, the most visited town in Romania but the campsite owner put us off by describing a road with lots of road works, along with problems parking and a town full of Brataslavians visiting for the weekend. It was still a fair trek to Carta and we arrived mid-afternoon. The campsite is Dutch run and called the De Ould Wilg (meaning the old willow). The campsite is in a wide valley with the Carpathian Mountains flanking the south side. It seems that the main occupants of the campsite are there to cross the Transfăgărășan, a mountain pass road that was constructed between 1970 and 1974 during the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu as a response to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union.Ceaușescu wanted to ensure quick military access across the mountains in case of a Soviet invasion. The road, also known as Ceausecu’s folly, had a high financial and human cost over its four years of construction but hey, it was named Top Gear’s best road ever so it can’t have been all bad! We met an Austrian that planned to cycle across the pass the following day. His rational was; he was Austrian and he liked cycling over high passes.



On arrival at the campsite we were given a small plastic bottle filled with a homemade blackberry liqueur. It was delicious. On leaving we asked if they sold it, which they did normally but didn’t have any left from the last batch. That afternoon we had a cycle through the village which is very well kept with houses painted every colour from the Dulux palette. The village also has a ruined monastery. We cycled across the river at a large dam and to another village (Neo Roman) which could have been an open air museum for how we used to live, its red tile roofed buildings and hay ricks making for a bucolic setting.



We have until midnight on Tuesday before our vignette runs out so we plan to visit the heart of Transylvania before heading into Hungary. The route up to Garda de Sus in the Apusenai National Park was once again a slow one due to the quality of the road (mainly non-existent in places) and numerous road works. On our way we saw Roma women in their beautiful traditional dress of white blouses with red skirts embroidered with gold thread. We had chosen the village of Garda because according to our research, it had three campsites to choose from. In reality it has one and we drove past it three times before finding the entrance. The view from our campervan our beautiful, it is where Heidi would have lived with her Grandfather if she had been Romanian. There is a chair lift ascending the hill behind us but no other clue that this might be a ski area.



The Romanian language uses the Latin alphabet and words that are a mixture of french, spanish and italian so whilst we can read and vaguely understand signs, the basics of conversation allude us. Our initial impressions of the country – we love it! It seems a little more prosperous than Bulgaria with everything being more neat and tidy (except the roads but at least they are being improved). The people seem friendly and so we can forgive their impatient and frequently dangerous driving. We are viewing our week here as a reccy for when we have time to spend more time exploring this fascinating place.



Our last day in Romania was spent cycling and walking in the Apuseni national park, famous for its caves and pot holes. We managed to collect a dog on our walk through beech and pine forest. We had lunch in one of the many alpine meadows rich with wild flowers and dotted with summer farms. On our return to the campsite we watched a thunder storm travel up the valley towards us. It cleared later that evening but leaving a low cloud obscuring the hills around us.

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