Andrea goes exploring again!

My home from Tuesday to Friday this week was  Timișoara . When I originally planned where to go in Romania, it wasn't on the itinerary, but in order for me to see the Southern Trnasylvanian Alps I decided to include it and so therein began what was a fairly major detour in an otherwise seemingly sensible route. To get to  Timișoara I had a 6.5 hour bus journey which I was a little excited about in terms of the scenery I would see, until I got stuck in the corner of the back seat of the minibus that was to be my carriage from Cluj! Not being the world's best traveller in this type of vehicle, still nursing one helluva cough and cold and wedged in for potentially a quarter of a day, the journey suddenly loomed large.  We left at 10.30am and as we headed into the hills they were somewhat hidden behind a veil of what I thought was white cloud and figured would burn off fairly quickly as the sun was getting stronger by the minute. However, it seems it wasn't cloud, as it staye...

Since Wednesday 11th October I've been in Romania. I started my trip in Satu Mare and I'd really like to be able to describe the place to you but unfortunately I got properly sick when I was there. It was just a cold but completely knocked me for six but hence the slow start... I'm blaming it on the fact that I've gone from eating around 8-10 portions of fruit and veg a day to being lucky if I have a really good day and manage 3! I've relented and started on the multivitamins, which I figure is OK even though it goes against all my principles because in my current situation it's probably sensible! Anyway, I made it out of bed twice. The first time to buy my bus ticket down to Cluj Napoca, during which expedition I discovered a supermarket with good quality fruit and veg so I OD'ed on it those days. The second time was because I figured that as I wasn't likely to go there again, it would be a shame to miss it completely. So these are the main sights I saw...

Today I've travelled from Hungary into Romania. My final destination in Hungary was Debrecen. I stayed in a guesthouse there and the host, Irena, was very sweet; I think mainly because I have the same name as her daughter. She has three children, one of whom works in London. At least I think that's what she was trying to tell me. We had a half hour conversation where she spoke no English and I spoke no Hungarian but it seems we are both masters at charades so...! Debrecen turned out to be a great place to finish my Hungarian Adventure. It was by far the friendliest place I encountered in Hungary and was the sort of place where you could just spend a day mooching i.e. what I did! Debrecen has a number of interesting buildings which mainly included churches... The Great Church above had great views from the top But I also quite liked the theatre... I also loved the fact that this place has one of its trees as a highlight! Said tree... They were also fond of statues there, which h...

On Saturday morning I decided that I would indulge my fascination with gravestones and I took myself off to the central cemetary to spend some time with dead people 👻. There are over 250,000 people buried here which gave great scope for finding some cool headstones. A few that caught my eye are below This one made me both smile and feel sad. From there, I took a tram and metro up to the Naschmarkt, one of the two markets in Vienna. The first half was a flea market (my idea of hell) and the second half a food market (my idea of heaven) where I had an amazingly delicious falafel sandwich and some sort of apple pie that I can't remember the name of but I took a picture of it! At this point it was getting really quite cold and so in anticipation of my museum evening I went and bought a hat and scarf and then went back back to the hostel for a bit of a rest before my mammoth museum session. There were a few museums close to where I was staying and so I started with those, then I took t...