Rasnov is pretty close to Brasov, and has an old fort at the top of a hill beyond a nice hike.
Bran castle here is the biggest attraction. It is most famous for being Dracula's castle in Bram Stoker's book. The historical person that Dracula was based on, Vlad Dracula Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, lived elsewhere, but was actually imprisoned in Bran castle for a year. The castle is interesting now because it was remodeled in the 1920's when Queen Marie started living here. It's a nice plane, and the new plaster was artistically placed to allow you to see the old stone underneath so you cal see what it used to look like.
It's up in the hill behind this cottage.
This cross in front of the castle has cyrillic text. I was confused until I later learned that Romanian used to be written in cyrillic until fairly recently. That's interesting, I think. After the language's separation from latin, it must have gone through a period where people spoke it, but did not write it. The region is almost completely surrounded by slavic countries, so they adopted the cyrillic alphabet from them. They shifted back to the latin alphabet, maybe to distinguish themselves from the slavic countries. They do take pride in being latin-descended and not slavic.
The town of Sigiosoara is where Vlad the Impaler grew up. The gothic buildings give the town a very old look.
This clock tower has seven statues on a rotating drum near the bell that each represent a day of the week. It rotates so the appropriate one faces outwards. On the hour, when the bell rings, the statue animates. The one I saw was a boy banging a drum.
Scary street!
The cemetery was interesting to walk through. Many tombstones are covered in vines, and the text was worn off on many.
The local trains in Romania are in pretty poor shape. Everything is broken. The window, which rolled up with a crank, was stuck down, so the ride was cold and drafty. The door of the train only closed half-way, so you could easily fall out if you weren't careful. There were no lights whatsoever, so when we went into tunnels, it was pitch black. There were some tunnels that lasted for minutes, which seemed like an eternity, so you just have to hang on to your bags so nobody steals them and wait for the light to come back.
There was an American guy in the train who had bicycled across Romania in November of 1989, just a month before the revolution. It would be a great place to bike across. But I'd be afraid of the secret police that year. He says there was a law that Romanians, if they talked to a foreigner, had to report a transcript of the conversation to the police within 24 hours. And they were forbidden to house foreigners. So, he camped and had a hard time getting locals to talk to him. Under Ceausescu's communism, The farms were forced to collectivize, and the only things you could buy at the store were mostly bread and jam, so he survived on that. All the good stuff, the farmers kept for themselves or sold on the black market. Most people subsisted on very meager food and barely survived. Christmas day that year, after the revolt which lasted ten days, is when the people executed Ceausescu on national television. The following brief period of freedom, I think, would have been a far better time for a bike ride through the country, when the people would be eager to talk to an American.
The castle at Sinaia looks like it's from a fairytale.
Inside, where you have to pay a lot to take pictures, it's a museum. This is the coolest castle I've seen yet. It was built fairly recently, so doesn't have a whole lot of history, and castle is as appropriate a term as it is for Hearst Castle, but it looks great. Inside, the walls are decorated with paintings and carvings and intricate inlays and the furniture and architecture are amazing. The spiral staircase, carved of some expensive wood, is particularly memorable to me. The "moorish room" is modeled after the Alhambra in spain. The "turkish room" is themed with comfortable pillows and has hookahs set up. The place is very worth the entrance fee.
Pelesor castle, up the hill, is a little more modest. King Michael, who owns both castles, allows them to be museums at the moment. He intends to take Pelesor back as a royal residence this year.
We miss you, when you coming home!
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