Road Tripping Romania

Tosh: This is a general post about some of the other places we went in Romania and just traveling around.

Brasov: Brasov is where we landed in Romania, and it's a small city with a charming downtown/old-town area. The city walls no longer stand, but the main gate is still there, which was built in the 1400's. It's a bit galling that someone decided to spray-paint tag it with their name recently. It's a bit nutty to me that folks will deface a 600 year-old monument to their own history.

Bran: Bran is a small village not to far from Brasov and the location of the famous Bran Castle, which contrary to popular belief, was not Dracula's residence. The town is overrun with tourists and for good reason; the castle is immaculately preserved and an architectural gem. Standing in the towers, it's easy to see the advantages of it's placement to control trade along the road through one of the major passes through the Carpathian mountains. Of the royals who last lived in the castle, Princess Ileana interests me the most; she fled the Soviets after WWII, ending up in the good ol' USA. She went back to Europe, eventually; but then returned to the US later in life to set up a monestary in Pennsylvania, where she remained the rest of her life. The lady led a very interesting life.

Road Tripping: The Romanian countryside is captivating; modern cars zoom by horse drawn trailers. The trailers are interesting because I can tell some of them have been around for a very long time, well before modern materials were available; however, most of the trailers have been retrofitted with modern rubber and air-filled tires. The country has a lot of national/state parks with abundant forests, and the rural landscape looks to be more small-plot individual farmer-owners rather than the large uni-crop fields that seem ubiquitous in the US.

As we drive, Johanna spots an archeaological site on the side of the road, so we stop for a minute to check it out. We are the only ones on location, but immediately a guy comes out and says, "I'm Roshav, and I will guide you today." It turns out that this location was the main fortification for the Roman Empire with Dacia in the 2nd century. It is an amazing place, and the guide shows us some interesting things like the floor heating system used by the Romans. Great find.

Peleș Castle: Peleș Castle, in Sinaia, was a residence of Queen Marie and King Ferdinand. It's definitely a fairy-tale looking building and the grounds are equally picturesque. The line to get into the main castle is insanely crowded, so we elect to go to one of the outlying buildings of the castle (also equally impressive), and it's a good choice. It turns out that the building we chose was actually the main residence, so it's grandly furnished and the walls of one of the rooms is a intricate carving of leaves and vines coated with a bronze finish.

Bucharest: Bucharest was just a waypoint for us. We did manage to see a cool monastery.

Jo: road-tripping through Romania after we finally manage to rent a car (even from a dubious rental agency and probably not 100% legal) been amazing. We’ve seen small picturesque mountain villages, majestic landscapes, horse carriages and all kinds of animals on the roads (bears among them).

Driving in Romania is ‘interesting’, with regular traffic rules being viewed as very optional by most. After a few days of driving I adjust to their style and try to go with the flow, which often involves dodging collisions by getting the f out of the way.

My favorite part about this truly beautiful country is the people: No matter how small the villages are and how little English they speak, we get by brilliantly with my very basic romanian (3 weeks of Duolingo don’t make you fluent), and hands and feet. Romanians are extremely genuinely friendly, kind, happy, helpful and possess a great sense of humor, mostly involving jokes about themselves.

I was surprised again to see how clean, modern and well kept their houses are, even in the not so touristy areas. I was expecting a lot of post-Soviet concrete in various stages of decay, but could not have been more wrong. The villages remind me more of Austrian mountain villages with beautiful rustic homes and well kept gardens with vegetables and fruit trees.

I have definitely fallen in love with Romania and will have to come back to explore the rest of it.

Jo in Bucharest waiting for a cab

Oldest Beer Hall in Bucharest. A beautiful place.

This is a room in Queen Marie's residence at Peles Palace

Another shot of the same room at Peles Palace.

We happened across the castle where the show Wednesday was filmed. Kids were thrilled.

One of the gates a the ancient Roman Fort that we happened across on our roadtrip

This map was in the museum (small one-room building) at the Roman Fort; it depicts the Roman/Dacian border at the time.

A model of what the fort looked like.

The remains of the base of some of the Roman buildings at the fort. The flooring sat above the base and the Romans pumped heating under the floors.

An ancient monastery in a cave called Stone Raven Monastery (in Romanian, though, of course)

This monastery also serves as the royal crypt. A few kings and queens tombs are in the building. We happened across stuff like this wherever we went.

Another shot of one of the buildings at the royal crypt (there were two main buildings). The windows in the capolas were beautifully crafted.

One of the many horse carts all over the rural roads.

Another horse cart where you can see the typical trailer we saw so often.

Curious mules in the mountains.

Wandering around Brasov

A staircase in Bran Castle

Day 2 in Brasov, trying to figure out how to get a car

This was an ancient fort built atop a hill overlooking Brasov

It happened that we were in Brasov for Romania vs Netherlands in the 2024 Eurocup! They had a huge public viewing in the Old City town square. Netherlands won, of course.

The old city gate to the old city of Brasov.

This was in the Black Church, one of the main landmarks of old city Brasov. If you look closely, many of the tomb inscriptions are in old German. One thing I learned all over Eastern Europe is that the Germans were invited everywhere to either build things, or further back, to protect from invasions like the Mongols (think Teutonic Knights)