Blogs from Transilvania, Romania, Europe - page 8

It's been a while ... We've been so busy recently that I haven't had time to update you, sorry. So after Prague we drive to Vienna, it was a pretty painless drive and the roads were scenic. Vienna was much better than we thought it was going to be, we had a guided tour from a couple of Joss' friends and managed to find enough time to see all of the main sights in a day. We then went to Jason's uncles house for a lovely meal which was very welcome (and very tasty). Then came another trouble free drive to Budapest. A soak in a traditional spa was in order that evening. The evening entertainment was a pub crawl to some traditional bars, meeting fellow travellers along the way. A great night, and not such ... read more

Day 3 of our stay in Romania, it is still stinking hot and humid. I had many adventures planned to do while we were here but it is difficult to go off hiking and exploring in +33C tempatures with our older dog. So we settled on a day trip into the city of Sibiu only about 20 minutes away. What a lively city Sibiu is, hustling , bustling fun place. It is one of the most charming places to visit in Europe. it is an anicent walled city, with the defence structures are still in excellent condition. We love to wander the old streets discovering every nook and cranny, jammed full of Romania heritage. Even though it was hot we managed to stay reasonably confortable in the air conditioned building, most shop keeper where very friendly ... read more

On July 21st continued on our adventure across Hungary to Romania, still very hot, still very humid but we are all comfortable easy roads throughout Hungary. It should have been roughly a 4 1/2 hr drive to our first nights stop. We could probably made it further but we don't know what the roads are like in Romania I had read that there was a lot of construction and don't really want to chance it in the dark. As it turns out we were delayed at the boarder for over 45 minutes, not sure why, no reason given, which we have to accept and carry on. But did notice at the boarder there was a Canadian flag, which I thought odd to see. Oradea's building is a mix of Communist era boring block apartment style building, ... read more

From Vlad the Impaler to Nicolae Ceausescu Romania has over the years had its fair share of unpleasant rulers. Ruthless dictators all over the world seem to have two things in common: they like to torture people and tend to have a liking for erecting big buildings as monuments over themselves. In Romania things aren't much different from any other places. Hence there are a few palaces and castles around and we would now like to write about the ones we visited. Bran Castle Bran Castle is likely the most well known of the Romanian castles and palaces thanks to it being the home of the largely fictional character Count Dracula in the Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Having seen Bran Castle we must say that using that particular castle as setting for the novel was wise. ... read more

Rano 20 minutovy pesi presun na autogara 2 (strada avram ianacu resp oproti stadionu). Preco sme sa nepresuvali mhd ? no lebo pesi toho clovek vidi viac :) Napr sme videli pekny dreveny kostolik, tiche ulicky, miestnych ludi atd Na bus stanicu vstupujeme od stadiona, zadnym vchodom, preskakujeme kaluze,rano bola dobra leja, a dostavame sa na nastupiste. Mensie obzeranie stanice,nic extra,stanica z roku 0. Na jednom buse vidim napisane rasnov, pytam sa sofera na bran, posiela ma o jedno miesto dalej. Po 20 min prichadza nas bus. Taka stara rachotina , v ktorej si sofer potrpi na vonacky. Ma ich po celom strope,vyzera to dost zaujimavo. Aby turisti vedeli lahko najst tento bus je na nom v predu obrazok "drakulovho" hradu. Ako s blizime k cielu, v dialke sa crtaju zasnezene vrchy hor. Paradne to vyzera. ... read more