Picture postcard, pretty Brasov. Pastel walls and terracotta tiles, cobbled streets and medieval towers. Emerald misted forests, saxon forts, and a massive thunder and lightening show making our first experience of Transylvania Hollywood perfect.
InterRegio trains not known for being luxurious (hehe) super hot, super dirty, but super cheap only about $10 each and only 4 hours from Bucharest, (Bucharest post coming soon hard to write) so very doable. Sticking your head out of the window (which took four of us to open ) was a relief from the sticky, airless, old fashioned carriage. We shared the space with two young people who didn’t seem bothered by the heat at all! Oh to be young and Romanian. Loved the grassy tracks maintenance issues I think!. Travelling from place to place every five or so days is getting quite tiring. Even in the same country just finding your way about and finding the places to buy stuff becomes quite a tiring. Moving countries, relatively fast, also has its stresses, language, sim cards, transport systems, food and buying tickets for the public bus sometimes requires a mensa degree! Thank goodness for data which we have found cheap and pretty easy to find. Wow we Canadians get so ripped off with our phone plans. Best value we found is right here in Romania. Get this 50 gigs, 2000 country mins and 200 international minutes for $7… whaaat.
Anyway back to the train gorgeous scenery through the mountains and pretty soon we were in spooky kooky Transylvania.
Brașov is a city in the Transylvania region of Romania, ringed by the Carpathian Mountains. It’s known for its medieval Saxon walls and bastions, the towering Gothic-style Black Church and lively cafes. Piaţa Sfatului (Council Square) in the cobbled old town is surrounded by colorful baroque buildings and is home to the Casa Sfatului, a former town hall turned local history museum.
Such a pretty bright town we loved the atmosphere of family. Kiddies were everywhere at all times of the day and night – bed time what bedtime? They just ran about in the evening playing, while mom and dad sat and had a drink and chat in the square. Nice life. Take a leaf outta this playbook I think.
We walked the walls around the town and ventured up into the surrounding woods. We found a couple of stone crosses just in the trees… well I guess it is Transylvania. We never found out why they were there.
Râșnov
A 30 minute ride on the bus makes for a nice day trip to the tiny town of Rasnov famous for two things, its Saxon fort and heavy metal festival… we were here for the fort incase you were wondering 🙂
The Fortress sits on a rocky hilltop in the Carpathian Mountains, 650 ft above the town. First mentioned in an official document in 1331, the fortress was built by Teutonic Knights as protection against invading Tartars and was later enlarged by the local Saxon population.
The sky had threatened a storm all morning. Thunder heads building and such humid air. Of course when we were furtherest away from any shelter, the thunder and lightning started. Next the clouds opened and for 30 minutes it POURED we got soaked!!! But the Transylvanian forest looked its part with mist rising as soon as the cold rain hit the hot trees. Eerie and fab. Hollywood couldn’t have done it better.
