To Travel Is To Live: Romania 5: Transylvania 3 (Brasov, Bran, Sinaia)

Leaving Sibiu, we stop at ASTRA Museum, which has a fantastic collection of traditional dwellings in a spacious woodsy area. We ride in a horse carriage but this would be a great place to walk around. Next is a brief stop at a glassmaking factory before heading on to Brasov.

A horse carriage ride through ASTRA open-air museum near Sibiu

Men hard at work at a glass factory

Brasov, the largest of the Saxon towns in Transylvania, certainly benefits from its proximity to Bucharest, and equally importantly for the tourist, to the "Dracula Castle" at Bran. But it is an attractive city in its own right. The city name is proudly displayed a la Hollywood on top of the green hill that steeply rises right behind the old town.

Brasov: the Hollywood style sign on the hill was placed after the prior name honoring Stalin was dropped.

Brasov: Main Square

Brasov: Pedestrian district

We get to the Bran Castle right after they open at 9am and have the place to ourselves briefly until big crowds predictably appear, which number over half a million a year. The vaunted façade that has helped the identification of this 14th century structure as the Dracula Castle, although the actual connection to Vlad Tepes is quite tenuous, was alas on the other side from where we entered, and by the time we got around to that side, the sun was high, surely having dispatched any Dracula spell from the scene.

Bran Castle: maybe this back side evokes a little bit of horror mystery even in daylight

Bran Castle from the courtyard

Bran Castle: looking out to the surrounding countryside

Bran Castle: the evocative facade

I read the news that the castle has been recently put up for sale again by the descendants of the Hapsburg Royal Family, who did a good job of redecorating the interior apparently in a short amount of time after reclaiming it in 2006. If you have $80 million to spare, this would be an awesome buy, or at least a nice toy to impress your kids with. This is a second coincidence after the news that broke when we first entered Transylvania that Prof. Florescu, the first to link Bram Stoker's story to Vlad Tepes, had just died.

Among the myriad souvenir shops, we stopped at a small cheese stand where the owner kept offering different pieces to try, which became an impromptu cheese tasting session. Another treat was the introduction to delicious snacks, Kurtos and Langos, which are probably some of the very few Hungarian-origin items Romanians do not mind enjoying.

Bran: generous cheese seller

Bran: Kurtos (Hungarian snack)

Bran: no, this is not your mother's pizza - it's the Hungarian snack, Lantos. Any resemblance is purely accidental.

Our last stop before leaving Romania is the mountain resort, Sinaia. The green hilly resort town with big ostentatious homes is nothing like Mt. Sinai, however. The center piece is the Peles Castle, built as a summer residence of the all important King Carol I. It is reached by a pleasant 15 minute stroll up the hill. A European castle is a castle is a castle, but the holdings at this castle/palace are quite impressive. This was a classy way to end our wonderful whirlwind tour through Romania.