Romania – 4 to 7 August 2008

Buna - from Transylvania and our search for Dracula! Romania was a delight – from Transylvania 's Saxon towns to horse-carts driven by folk in colourful traditional gear and western European palaces that sit side by side with communist housing blocks, all in a beautiful landscape. Ancient Romania was inhabited by Thracian tribes or Dacians even before the Greeks established trading colonies in the 7 th century BC. After the Roman era the Magyars expanded their empire into this area from the 10 th century until the Romanian state was born in 1862. After WWII the country suffered under communist dictators until democracy arrived in 1990.

We arrived from Gyula into Romania , taking just over half an hour for our first real border check since Africa ! Travelling east, the roads and well worn villages still with their corners cafes, locals sitting outside their homes on make-shift bunks, enjoying beer with their breakfasts, while watching the traffic pass-by and a green country side, reminded us of our home continent. We were immediately more aware of the local struggle to survive – besides their dress, many rural communities still use a horse driven cart and manually work the land. The 300km via Deva and Sibiu to our bush camp near some construction site about 100km from Brasov took nearly 11 hours – not the best of roads and frequent stops on the national road for no apparent reason. But we were excited to be in Transylvania, a name that conjures up images of haunted castles, werewolves and vampires and our campsite - Vampire Camping, in the town of Bran , home to Dracula's Castle. This is the setting of Bram Stokers' novel with the reigning Prince Vlad as the prototype for Dracula. The fitting Vampire Camping was our home for the next 2 days and doing laundry, some schooling and a bit of R&R was well needed. A really worldly, interesting American called Dan Ballard, whom we had met in Budapest and was hiking around Europe, walked into the same camp and was to join GR1 all the way to Istanbul . The next day was for the Gothic Bran castle where Prince Vlad Tepes once visited in the 15 th century. Vlad was known as Tepes (the impaler) as he used to drive a wooden stake through his enemies backbone causing a torturous 48 hour death! But he was called ‘Dracula' after his father Vlad Dracul, which means ‘son of the dragon'. The castle upon a hilltop was just a tad spooky and rather smaller than we had expected but quite a sight from the surrounding area. Just a pity about the tour groups and all the touristy Dracula souvenirs that detract from the experience. Later the afternoon GR1 took a drive via the 13 th century Rasnov Fortress to Brasov . This gothic-to-its-cobbled core city has many colourful buildings dating back to the 15 th century, like the gold council house in the lively Piata Stafalui (Square). But the most interesting was the street cafes (where GR1 had 2 lunches) and Europe 's narrowest street – Sforii which is definitely for pedestrians! From the old city's original walls and defensive white tower, we had our final view of Brasov before heading back to Bran. The next day with our extra companion, we headed south stopping at Sinaia, a Carpathian resort town in the Bucegi Mountains to view the castle of King Carlos I. What a display of extravagant excess! That night we hit the capital Bucharest and the rather expensive and basic campsite at Casa Alba. The next day we all used the local transport system in teams. GR3 had quite an experience on the bus - a s they had no idea of the bus ticket verification system, they decided to sit on the bus with their tickets in hand and after a few kilometres were greeted by two female bus inspectors who insisted they pay a fine for not having punched the tickets. They refused and a heated argument ensued. A very friendly local gentleman, as well as other commuters on the bus, then intervened and after failing to convince the inspectors not to fine them, he offered to pay the fine on their behalf, claiming that the inspectors were not ‘human'. Dean tried to convince him not to pay, but after a while, the fine was paid and the bus quieted down.

This city was just too sprawling with many old buildings beside grey housing blocks of the communist era. This is typified by the infamous Palace of Parliament , the world's second largest building (after the Pentagon). Although monstrous it was rather bland and GR1 spent most of the day in the Unirea Shopping Centre before walking the historic quarter and past the communist party building to the bus back to the camp. As the day drew to an end we drove further south to our border crossing at Giurgiu and across the toll bridge over the Danube into Bulgaria . But that is another story! La Revedere Romania !