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Published: March 20th 2007
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Before the trip
Common dinner in my flat before we started As there was a holiday on last Thursday and riots, we took the possibility to make a bigger trip. So I've planed detailed weeks before.
We were 18 people and 2 Mini-Vans, each for 9 persons: 11 students from Budapest, 6 form Debrecen plus my sister in Romania who has organized a very unique local first day and was a very great dolmetscher. A quite multinational group with 4 germans, 4 portugiese, 2 polish and turkish, as well as 1 czech, finnish, italian, singapore and south korean.
So after a common dinner on Wed at my flat we started to Debrecen to pick up the rest. Unfortunately the description where the dorm is located, was not very good. That's why we searched almost one hour to find it. The next problems we had at the border control, a lot of work for the border officers. Not for EU citizen, but for the turkish - it took almost 45 mins.
Later I heard that the officers had no idea what a green card is so they spent a lot of time to flirt with them.
So we lost some time during the drive also while the time-frame form the routing planer
cars
getting the cars at the company was not very good hence we changed the plans. For breakfirst it was already too late, so Nina came in our direction and we decided to make a picknick in a very nice valley. But therefore we visited a Salt-Mine in Tudra. That was very impressive. I've never seen such a big artificial cave and all made without machines. Also the picknick in the valley was very nice in a wonderful landscape. Thanks to Johann, our local guide for this day, for his excellent local knowledge. After that we made a walk through the clum and enjoyed the impressive nature.
In the later afternoon we were invited for barbecue at the host family of my sister in Villa Kunterbunt. They all were excited to see me. And as I knew romanians are great host - that's still right. Later we went to a lokal wine tasting. I was very surprised that we were not in a wine cellar or winary but instead with 20 people in the living room of the wine farmer. A really unique expressen. Even for him because he has never seen such a multinational group. Unfortunately I could't taste the wine cause I had to drive.
salt mine
visiting the salt mine. the balcony was more than 150 years old as we heard later But say said, that it is the best regional wine here. It was quite funny. After everyone was tipsy, they began to sing several songs in their native language :-) On thing I have learnd this evening: you need a very long time with romanians. It took almost 45 min. to pay the bill and buy some bottles of wine. So the others were already waiting for us in the van. The way to the cloister (Manastirea Rimet) was quite anventurous on really romanian roads: no asphalt, a lot of deep hols, a cliffy acclifity next to it ...
For it we waked up in the morning very nice when the nuns started to sing. And in the daylight we first realized the breathtaking countryside. The cloister was located between woods and huge mountains. At this time there was something like "Post", so we got no milk, mhees and beef for breakfirst. But the marmelade and what they call Zacustra was delicious. After getting a guided tour to the cloister and it's museum we drove down the hill and enjoyed the nice countryside. Today we planned to visit Valea Viilor/Wurmloch, a former german settlement from the Saxons, to visit the
picknick
down in the valley we had our picknick fortress church. There are many kind of these but the one in Valea Viilor belongs to the world culture heritage and is one of the famous. The village here is very small. So there was no wonder that the local supermarket had no more bananas after 4 customers and no other fruits after about ten :-) The next station and also accomodation for this day was Sighisoara/SchäÃburg - also a german settlement. The old town belongs also to the world culture heritage.
The next day directed us to Castle Peles in Sinaia. It was the summer residence of the former kings and is one of the nicest castles in Europe and one of the most impressive I have ever seen. In my opinion at the same level as Neuschwanstein and Versailles - definitely the right decision to visit it. Unfortunately it was forbidden to make pictures inside. After taking a road with very nice landscape and nature we arrived in Bran, famous for the Törzburg, also know as Dracula's castle. Stupidly the guidebooks were wrong and the castle has already close at 16am instead of 17.30. So we decided to stay over night here and had time for the tourist
walk
short hike through the clum market now.
Sunday visiting Dracula's Castle. Some were a little bit disappointed because there is nothing impressive. It's only famous of his name. Inside there is nothing famous. Also it was very very crowded.
The trip back was very long: We started at 1am in Bran, break for lunch/dinner a few hours later, bringing Nina at home. So after a long drive and several stops, we arrived in Budapest at 4 o'clock at Monday morning. After a little bit cleaning and getting all the luggage out of the bus I fell to bed very tired. I was also quite glad that on the next day the car hirerer complained nothing althought the cars were quite dusty and some snaps disappeared in one trunk.
So it was a very nice trip. Going by car was absolutely the right decision: the same price as by train, we were completely unindependent and could see much more.
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