Transylvania

Thursday 18th April 2013

Transylvania, for many conjours, up the image of Bram Stoker’s Dracula character based on Vlad the Impaler – a feared enemy of the region, thought to have killed in excess of 80,000 during his reign of terror. Thankfully the tourism industry here on the whole avoids the tacky, mass market merchandising that could detract from what is a fascinating part of the country.

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The character of the many towns in the area reflects the changing patterns of settlers in the region and the defensive towers, hilltop citadels and fortified churches date to the Saxons migration to the area. Tourism is being developed around these locations, many are already UNESCO World Heritage sites and some are under major reconstruction. We have visited a number of the villages and towns on our travels through this region of the country, many share similarities but all different in their own way.

Sibiu

A charming city surrounded by old fortified walls with beautiful squares, narrow cobbled streets and lovely churches. Split into an upper and lower part of the town there are also a number of guild towers and we walked up to the top of the Council Tower to get a birds eye view of the city.

Cişnadioara

A tiny village south of Sibiu with a hilltop fortified church. Inside the partly renovated very plain church is an altar with marble plaques in memory of German soldiers who died in 1916 in battles around Sibiu.

Braşov

Strategically located near the mountain pass this Saxon town has a large central square surrounded by merchant houses and dotted with churches. Fortress walls line the town beneath Mount Tampa. In case you’re not sure where you are they have a huge illuminated Braşov sign on the hillside – HOLLYWOOD style!

Bran

The castle here claims links with Vlad the Impaler, it’s impressive with many towers and ramparts and lies in a beautiful mountain setting but the tourist tat and Dracula tours didn’t appeal to us and we drove on out of town choosing not to stay at the rather ‘dead’ looking Vampire Camping site!

Rupea

Approaching from the southeast you cannot fail to be impressed with the strategic positioning of the castle on a craggy outcrop with views across the countryside for miles. Under massive reconstruction we could only admire it from the outside but the newly finished car park made a great overnight stop for us and one of the best views to date from our ‘bedroom’ window as the floodlit castle glowed against the night sky.

Saschiz

Another impressive hilltop citadel which we walked up to through the village backstreets, pretty pastures and wooded lane. Although totally ruined we were able to wander around freely (the Health & Safety police would have a field day here) peering down into the unguarded 60m deep well, climbing steps up through archways and wandering around the crumbling towers. It was peaceful, beautiful and free.

Sighişoara

Another Saxon influenced hilltop citadel with pastel coloured houses, cobbled streets, an understated town square and a number of cafés, hotels and sadly a few tourist tat shops. The Clock Tower has interesting  figurines and beautifully coloured roof tiles. With the absence in some areas of the town of cables, wires, signs and ariels there are sections where you really feel you are stepping back in time.

Here comes the sun......

Wednesday 17th April 2013

We are getting accustomed / resigned to the manic driving style now having driven about 470 miles almost due east in Romania and after 5 days in the country we are now in the Transylvania area so here is a quick reflection on our travels here to date. Spring is in the air and the sun has finally come out .....…

 

Leaving Hungary’s we entered no-mans land between the two borders where we purchased our vignette – compulsory for all roads in Romania so we couldn’t avoid not paying this one. It cost €9 for 1 month, no windscreen stickers are issued here as they monitor compliance electronically through ANPR cameras placed on the roadside. A few hundred meters on there is (finally!!) a manned border post and we whizz past the long TIR lorry queue to the front of the car checkpoint where a cheery lady (good cop) glanced cursorily at our passports and bid us hello and goodbye whilst grumpy guy (bad cop) glanced over our vehicle, questioned if it was just the two of us in it and finally waved us on.

Arad is a huge sprawling town and the first you come to after crossing the border from Mako. We parked up in a backstreet and went in search of the Tourist Information Office where we hoped to find a warm welcome and come out with a useful selection of maps and handful of brochures. Not to be – two maps of Arad was all she had to offer. She told us to go to other Tourist Information offices for information on their areas and advised we go buy a map from the bookshop.  This was so similar to our experience in Slovenia but we have now realised the ‘service’ varies greatly from office to office. The young lad in Sibiu office could not have been more friendly and helpful, supplied local area and country maps, camping site information and suggestions on great places to go after leaving his ‘patch’. The bored girl in the Brasov office could barely raise a smile, had no maps and no clue basically. Makes you wonder what the essential requirements on the Personal Specification for these jobs were…..

Anyway we are making the most of the information we already have and that we get given and are clocking up the miles, it’s a huge country. We have driven through some lovely countryside, seen some impressive fortified churches, castle and medieval towns and are hoping to see some of the spectacular scenery, including gorges, lakes and caves, as we now head north.  

Romania is an interesting mix of traditional and modern seemingly muddling along together. We have driven passed shepherds in fields dressed in full length sheepskin coats tending their flocks, farmers sowing seeds by hand into plots of land furrowed by horse and carts, and men and women in traditional outfits in the small villages – well off the tourist route so not just for our benefit.  Getting good photos while we are on the move though is proving difficult.

We have also passed huge modern out-of-town shopping centres and four star hotels, seen the youngsters in the latest fashions with the most up to date mobile handsets and been impressed by the extensive art and culture programmes being offered at the regional theatres and venues. In contrast the Saxon walled citadels in Transylvania are beautifully preserved and you almost feel like you have stepped back in time walking along the cobbled streets.

The language descends from Latin and shares a common heritage with French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese and is as colourful as their currency.

Accident waiting to happen....

Monday 15th April 2013

The sign below warns that the next 10km is an accident blackspot – that sign could be altered to read ‘next 100km’ or even next ‘500km’. Within ½ hour of entering Romania we had to hit the brakes hard on a handful of occasions. Scary stuff…

Having driven over 5000 miles to date we have found the standard of driving really good – even in Italy! We aren’t the fastest aerodynamic vehicle on the road but other drivers have been very careful when overtaking us and when needed we pull in to let vehicles past. There are very few laybys on Romanian roads though.

In Hungary we saw loads of billboards indicating they had received European Funding although we could never quite work out what it had been spent on – it’s quite obvious here in Romania, it’s going on the road network. A massive project is underway throughout the whole country to build new motorways which must be long overdue as the main roads, and consequently all the traffic including the huge TIR lorries, thunder through the centre of all the towns.

We and one German plated car were the only vehicles we saw sticking to the 50kph speed limit in towns as a convoy of inpatient irritated drivers built up behind us. They overtake with no consideration about the presence of or speed of approaching traffic, often whilst driving through towns and are generally on their mobile. 

Looks like the new roads can’t come soon enough.

Hungarian highlights

Saturday 13th April 2013

We spent 9 days and covered about 600 miles in Hungary from Lake Balaton in the East to Miskolc in the West, Szentendre in the North to Szeged in the South. The weather was very mixed – rainy mornings, mainly overcast days but occasionally quite warm and sunny. Hungary has a very varied landscape from the swollen Danube and Tisza rivers that dissect the country to the mountain ranges in the north east and the vast Great Hungarian Plain which covers half the country. 

Danube north of Budapest

Flooded Tisza river in Szeged

The Great Hungarian Plain

We avoided the motorways to ensure we saw most of the changing countryside but in doing so found the roads were often terribly potholed and poorly patched. The deliberate dumping of waste and litter on the roadsides is a huge problem and a real eyesore.

 

Vineyards in Badacsony - Lake Balaton

Airplane museum in Szolnok

Many people cycle the old style ‘sit-up-and-beg’ bikes in towns and villages as their main means of transport and there is a good network of cycle paths. The standard of driving was very good and we found the people really friendly and polite.

Art Nouveau style buildings in Szeged

Votive Church in Szeged

We stayed 2 nights in campsites (one cost £15 the other £12) – other than that we stayed free in quiet car parks on the outskirts of towns.  All the usual supermarkets were here – Lidl, Aldi, Penny Market and Tesco and food is generally cheap. Diesel cost £1.18 a litre and most garages accepted credit cards.

Car-park camping on shores of Lake Balaton

The language was impossible to fathom out with no recognisable words and unpronounceable name places. We got the grasp of the essentials – Good Day, Thank you, Please and Goodbye, just enough to get us by. Foreign tourism is still in its infancy and signposting for touristic attractions is really poor. We’ll be back in a few years I’m sure…....