Beauty, Beasts and Brasov!

My apologies for the delay since my last post. If you hadn't guessed, I've been enjoying myself! After 2 days of rest, ice, ibuprofen and paracetamol I was able to hobble to the Autogara to pick up my bus from Suceava to Brasov. This was a really long journey, around 8 hours and on a full sized bus so thankfully I had a lot of leg room to stretch out. We ended up going on the road that we were hoping to travel on the day I had my epic journey. I'm so pleased I got to travel it as the scenery was out of this world! Some pictures below. 

As you can we, where we stopped for coffee was quite cold - it was around 11am and the pond was still completely frozen over!

I'm not sure if it was more or less scary doing it on a big bus. There were some pretty sharp turns but thankfully the size of the vehicle ensured we got the right of way!

Suceava to Brasov is the only bus ticket I've been able to book online. From the number of times the driver looked at my ticket, swapped the bottom and top part with me and then gave me the ticket I would have received had I bought it on the day, I'm guessing that not many people do this!

We arrived in Brasov around 3ish and thankfully the town's public transport is really easy to navigate and so I made it to the hostel with no trouble. I was staying in Hostel Boemia, an absolutely fab hostel. It's been one of the friendliest I've ever stayed in. 

I hadn't known before I went there that Brasov has Hollywood letters above it so I felt a little like I was in LA! (Only a very little though!)

My first day there I decided to do the obvious attraction in that area, Bran Castle; home of Count Dracula (this isn't really true but it's close enough!). On my way there, I met Malek and Mohammed from Israel who were visiting Romania for a while. My leg was much better that day but I couldn't walk anywhere as near as fast as they were able to and so I just enjoyed their company for the journey. 

As you would expect, the castle was a tourist attraction and there were multiple parties of school children there, but they raced through and just bypassed me so I was still able to enjoy it.

There were loads of tourist tat places where you could buy your souvenirs outside - I'm of a similar mind for these stalls as I am flea markets!

On my way back I stopped off at Rasnov Citadel. 

I hadn't been convinced this was going to be a good idea with my leg, but If you look on the right hand side of the picture above, you'll see a funicular which I obviously made use of! Whilst walking there I also expanded my covrig repertoire and had a covrig cascavel (cheese!) which was yum!

The citadel was both pretty well and pretty badly maintained at the same time... 

It also had the tourist tat places inside...

But what it was really worth visiting for were the views, which were just immense!

By this stage, it had become very clear that I had overdone it on my leg and I decided to head back to Brasov to rest. When I'd been in Suceava and wanting to visit the painted monasteries, I'd been advised that I could hitchhike between them, this would be fine. Obviously I had no intention of doing so, (and didn't end up needing to there 🙄) but when I was at the bus stop, I saw this in action. Literally people waiting for the bus were picked up by people heading through on their way to Brasov. I didn't do this, but I did get on a random minibus that said Brasov on it. I figured I needed to trust people a little more and all was fine! 

The following day, I decided to take it a little easy in the morning and then at lunchtime I went for mic with Marshall, one of the volunteers in the hostel. Mic are like kebabs that come with a mustard sauce and were delicious. Despite being incredibly full from this, we still stopped off for sweet stuff after...

Obviously not the entire cabinet!! 

And then we did the walking tour which took us to the Black Church, so named because of the colour of it after it succumbed to fire, and the fact that the dress in a painting of the Madonna in the church turned from blue to black in the fire but the rest of the picture was undamaged (every church needs its miracle)...

I didn't go into the church and wouldn't have been allowed to take photos if I had, so you just have a few from outside.

Union Square with its statue to commemorate communism and its constraints

Rope Street - the third narrowest street in the world. This came about as during the fire that affected the church, also got a lot of the local buildings and the fire spread quickly as all the houses were linked so they couldn't easily get to them to firefight. Hence the passages were made that were wide enough for a fireman carrying a bucket in each hand to pass from one street to another.

The Ekaterina Gate. Its four turrets indicate that the town was permitted to carry out executions!

And finally St Nicolae Church.

That night, a group of us went out for drinks. We started at La Fifi. From its name you would never have guessed that it was going to be playing heavy rock music. But it was! We stayed there for a couple of drinks and then after being unimpressed with the prices in other bars we headed back to the hostel and had mulled wine! As I said earlier, the people in this hostel were so lovely. Marshall I've mentioned already, Jodie who was such a cheerful person she would wake up laughing (one day with a headache from laughing so hard in her dream!), Hannah, Joelle, Kristoff, Charles and Jonathan are just a few. I was very sad to leave, but the following morning, nursing a hangover that was disproportionate the amount I'd had to drink, I said goodbye to my new friends and took a train to Bucharest, a city that has taken me somewhat by surprise. But that's a story for another day!