Vlad’s House has chocolate cake

Europe » Romania » Transilvania » Mures » Sighisoara
August 26th 2008

Published: August 28th 2008

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Lucky Cats

Viscri

Saxon Church

26-08-08 Vlad’s House has chocolate cake

We are in Sighisoara at present, we travelled across the north of Romania yesterday to arrive here late last night. It was a 12 hr day on the bike (for only 400 miles!), we saw some incredible winding roads, little villages, lots more horse power on the roads and lots of traffic. Back on to the subject of driving, Romania has another style all together, rules are guidelines, and guidelines only suggestions. They don’t see many motorcycles on the road here - mainly scooters and bicycles, from what I can make out a motorcycle is generally viewed as a bicycle so we were able to cut up past stationary traffic in cycle lanes with the encouragement of the locals - who where trying to fit small cars along the lanes as well. Unfortunately sometimes on-coming vehicle view the motorcycle as a bicycle as well, and like to take our lane occasionally, so its good to keep your eyes open. Given the chaos on the roads I was impressed that we only saw 2 minor accidents. Relying on a GPS device has its drawbacks when you pass through time zones with out realising. We arrived

Viscri

Saxon Church

at our destination 90 min after dark. Switch backs in the dark don’t come with any recommendation…. What was more worrying was that the lorry drivers took exception to the UK spec bike headlight. I had hurriedly masked over the offending corner of the light, but it still gave them grief, I was getting worried they may run us off the road. The B&B is in the citadel in the middle of the old town, and not an easy place to drive into, we had to pay a taxi driver (about a £1) to drive in and we followed him, he had to stop for directions as well.

Finally we were in Sighisoara. After a day of travel like this it was brilliant to be welcomed by John and Maria our hosts in the B&B in Sighisoara. This place is lovely, and they couldn’t do enough for us - even bringing the bike into the hall way of the house. The breakfasts are lovely fresh eggs from the chooks in the back yard where we eat breakfast.

Sighisoara is an impressive walled Saxon town, the Saxons settled around Translavania along with the Templar knights. The Saxons towns and

Viscri

Saxon Church

villages are really amazing. We travelled to a town called Viscri today which is in much the same state as it would have been in 1200. Dirt roads in and out of town, electricity only arrived in the 90s. There are still 25 Saxon families in the village, the lady who showed us around the church speaks German, along with English, French, Romanian…. A really interesting little community. Mass is still in German every Sunday. Prince Charles is thought very highly of here, he helped bring the world heritage order to the town, and stayed in Sighisoara for a few days.

So back to Sighisoara - it is also famous because Vlad was born here, there is a plaque on the wall of a fairly nice and normal looking hotel explaining this. The hotel has a great café with excellent cakes and coffee. Romanians make excellent cakes. I think if Vlad lived in the building now he would be too over weight to have the energy to do anything too sadistic…..

All in all we are very impressed by Romania, the people are very friendly, keen to help and communicate, even if we can’t understand each other, Sighisoara