The breathtaking Peles Castle

Our last day in Transylvania started out in the pouring rain. There was little point taking any of the gondolas up to the peaks, whether in Brasov, Busteni or Sinaia, given that all we would have seen were the inside of the clouds.

Instead we headed to the Peles Castle in Sinaia where King Carol and his wife Elizabeth would spend the summers. I have seen quite the share of castles in my travels, everything from Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany to the Alhambra in Spain and many in between. However, everything paled in comparison to what we saw in Peles.

Some credit has to be given to the fact that Peles is a relatively recent castle, having been constructed in 1886 with additional construction continuing on into around 1911. However, aside for the absolutely stunning architecture, the use of what must have been at least a dozen groves of cherry, oak, walnut and ash to provide enough wood for the interior decoration, the intricate carvings that adorned nearly every single space of the wall, the Italian marble, the Venetian glass, the Spanish leather, the palace also had an internal vacuuming system, an elevator, telephone and telegraph exchange and a functioning movie theater a mere 10 years after its invention.

I was not joking when I said that at least a dozen groves of trees must have been used to decorate the castle. I have not seen so much intricately carved wood adorning everything from floor, wall to ceiling. Every room was finished with excuisite detail. We had a chance to see only the bottom floor of this stunning three floor castle and amongst the most impressive rooms were: the hall of honor with an electrically movable stain glass ceiling that would let more light into the castle and allow it to be aired out in the summer; a library (one of three) that contained close to 10,000 books in German, Romanian, Russian, Italian, French, English, Latin etc as well as a secret passage way; a dining room that could seat 40 guests complete with the original china and silverware; the armory with a collection of weapons from all parts of Europe and the Orient; the oriental smoking room; the Moorish reception hall; King Carol’s office; and the 60 seat theater/cinema.

Unfortunately photographs inside were not permitted so you will have to look the castle up on the internet to get an impression of what the insides were like.

From Peles we continued back into the Romanian plains on our way to Bucharest. We made one little stop in at Sagova Lake where Vlad Tepes is supposed to have been buried. However, having 6 LEI left to our name and less than half an hour before needing to return the car, the stop was more of a relaxing lunch break at the waterfront.

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Transylvania: where vampires still roam the forrests

(I’m too tired to write anything coherent so for now this will have to do. Maybe over the next few days I will be able to revise this post.)

Transylvania is famed as the home of Dracula, steeped in mystery and legend. Yet it is so much more. First and foremost it is green. I do not think Ireland could be any greener. The forests are incredibly dense and lush; the rolling hills never have a brown speck; green plains fill the valleys; the orchard floors are covered in grass.

Our little green Metiz took us up through the Romanian plains, into the mountains and to Brasov, a decently sized city with a historic core that has the feel of a little village. It is home to the narrowest street in the world, a number of beautiful churches and a “BRASOV” equivalent of the Hollywood sign.

On our first day we drove to Bran to walk through the famed Bram Stoker castle and to fill up on our vampire lore. Part of Stoker’s inspiration came from Vlad Draculae, ruling prince of Wallachia from 1456 till 1462. He posthumously gained the moniker “Tepes” (Impaler) after his favoured form of punishing his enemies – impaling. A dull wooden stake was carefully inserted into the anus, driven slowly through the body avoiding vital organs, until it emerged from the mouth, resulting in hours, even days, of agony before death. Vlad was later vilified in history, but to many Romanians he was considered the equivalent of a local Robin Hood and was by no means any more brutal than most of his contemporaries.

From Bran we headed into the countryside and into little villages in search of various picuresque fortified churches that abound in this region. Our stops included the amazing churches in Prejmer, Harman and Sanpetru followed by a very enjoyable hike through some fields and hills overlooking the entire valley.

Our next day was to include a stop in Fagaras to see another fortified church and then a trip through the mountains to Poienari, the true home of Vlad Dracula that is only reachable by climbing over 1400 stairs. The loop we had planned was to be about 400km and should have taken us about 5 hours to drive with a few hours to climb the stairs. However, things don’t always turn out as planned and today was the perfect example.

We headed up towards Poienari over the mountain pass road. However, after 35 km of serpentine driving we came to a dead end. The pass was closed at least until June. Looking at the map we realized we could go back to the main highway and attempt a circular detour that might take about an hour and a half. Unfortunately Romanian roads and Romanian maps don’t always correspond. What on the map was shown to be the same type of road as the one we had just traveled down proved to be little more than a dirt road through tiny villages with our little Matiz having a hard time clearing most of the potholes. It took us over 2 hours to drive approximately 35 km but we finally made it to the turnoff for Poienari.

Our second attempt at reaching Poienari proved equally unsuccessful. After about 20 minutes of pothole filled road we found our way blocked by a gate and a guard who said we had to turn around. So we continued through the villages, alternating between short stretches of paved road, longer stretches of paved but incredibly “holly” road, and even longer sections of mere dirt.
We finally came to yet another turnoff point for Poienari. The sign said 3.5 km to a nearby town from where it was supposed to be yet another 4 km to the main road. However, after 2 km our little Metiz was barely fitting and to add to it was sliding backwards on the clay. After some sliding, pushing and stalling we decided to give up.

Three failed attempts, 8 hours of driving, endless villages, numerous herds of sheep, countless horses roaming the countryside, a family of little piglets, a week old yearling, a “flock” of baby geese and the occasional cow wondering down the main roads of the towns, we still had not seen Vlad’s home and no longer had the time to see it.

By 5:30pm we managed to show up in a town where we had hoped to be 3 hours earlier (after seeing Vlad’s castle). While there we grabbed our first bite to eat and then went to check out a beautiful monestary before continuing our drive back to Brasov.

We arrived back at our Pension at 10pm, exhausted and with a rattling vehicle (it now makes clickity noises when in neutral and a very weird rattling noise when in gear). Despite the day not having gone as planned, it was nevertheless an enjoyable and memorable day.

Tomorrow it’s off to see a few more of Transylvania’s gems and then back to Bucharest from where we will be taking a night train to Belgrade.

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Bucharest

There truly isn’t much to say about Bucharest. It is a large city with a very communist feel to it. The communist housing blocks comprise probably over 80% of the city and quite often hide the true gems that are stuck somewhere in between, be it churches, villas or some other form of monuments.

The old city which was to be comprised of little cobblestone streets seemed to be under construction. The cobblestones were dug up, most of the old building fronts were crumbling with only the ground floors being occupied. Every now and then you would come across an excavated part of a street that was fenced off because apparently underneath there were ruins. However, the city seemed unsure what to do about these ruins and simply left them partly exposed like a half-completed construction site.

However, there were a couple noteworthy things about Bucharest. The first were their absolutely delicious doughnuts. These aren’t your usual Tim Horton’s doughnuts. They were more akin to the Polish ponczki except double in size and with enough jam to fill more than half of the doughnut. They must have just come out of the oven and were absolutely delicious.
The other item was the Romanian Parliament building. It is the second largest building in the entire world (after the Pentagon). Comprised of 330,000 sq meters and over 1000 rooms there probably is not much that can equal it in the world. Construction began in 1984 and about 70% of it was completed in the first five years, but to date it still remains unfinished. On an average day there are about 5000 people working in the building, meaning about one per every 60 square meters. The banquet halls, conference rooms, staircases, and halls are absolutely amazing. A carpet, in one of the banquet halls, weighed a staggering 3 tones. The rental of such a hall for a private function was a mere 70,000 – 100,000 Euro, perfect for a graduation party.

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