Saxons, Vampires, Castles

---

When we left Shigisoara we took a detour to visit a unesco fortified monastry. On route we went through many colourfull villages, houses brightly coloured, even had a few kids chasing our van. Scarily, one tried to hang on to the ladder at the back of the van. These were some of the predominantly gypsy villages.

Saxons
We picked up 3 German hitchhikers. One of the girls was working in Romania as a volunteer (helping the Romani Gypsy children) for the last 8 months and spoke a bit of Romanian. We were also in luck as when we got to the village where the monastry was the German girl leaped out to ask for the key for the monastry. We realised some of the elderly people in the village only spoke German! This was originally a Saxon village of which only 26 of the more ancient saxons still live here. This was quite an educational afternoon. The lady who showed us around the monastry was one of the saxons who had emigrated to Germany but had recently returned to her home village and was working for UNESCO. Her and her sister had put together a museam by collecting all sorts of stuff from old kitchen ware to beds and farm tools. It was a great way to gain an insight into daily life as a saxon.

Vampire Castle - Brasov
Being in Transylvania, we felt we couldnt miss out on visiting Bran castle. It is called the "Vampire Castle", for reasons we have no idea, It has nothing to do with Vampires nor Vlad Tepes. Surprisingly for a tourist trap it was a lovely dreamy fairytale castle with lots of pretty furniture.

I asked Dara if he could build me a place like this in Connemara.......His response was "Dream on"....Which I quite happily did!

---

Photos

The fortified Saxon Monastry
Fortified from attacks from various peoples, but mostly the turks.

Domestic Day
Somedays we had to do domestic duties at the campsites....We noticed a weather pattern that every time we washed our clothes, it rained about 2 hours later!!!!

Brasov Centre
check out the imatation Hollywood sign on the hill and the old car!

Dream on...
fariytale Bran Castle.

Thirsty Dara
It was in the high 30s, Any way to cool down was accepted.

Tart
World record length Tart....They spent all morning making it...it disapeared in about a half and hour!! It was nice :)

Sibiu: European city of culture
This is the square in Sibiu, which was hosting the European city of culture 2007.