Brasov

The problem with group tours is, they often advertise the addition of another country without really delivering on it. So when we signed up to the Romania, Bulgaria & Turkey tour with Intrepid, we quickly found out that the Romanian leg of the trip consisted of meeting our group, followed by a group dinner and staying in a hotel opposite the Bucharest Train Station, far away from anything interesting at all. In fact, we would spend about 12hrs in Bucharest before leaving.

So, to compensate we decided to fly to Romania early, driving up to historic Brasov and incorporating a half day visit to the famous castle in Bran to check out all that Dracula influence.

Brasov was everything we wanted from an Eastern European city. Large pedestrian areas, buildings retaining the historic architecture, an abundance of terrace restaurant, walking distance activities and plenty of areas to explore nearby. We spent our first evening, walking the streets, grabbing a heavy meat platter dinner, getting our steps up before we retired to our rustic hotel, Safrano Palace, ready to travel to Bran the next day.

Bran was kind of a disappointment, you'll see in my other post, so we managed to get back the next day around lunch time, giving us enough time to explore Brasov some more. From our hotel, Safrano Place, conveniently nestled on the edge of one of the council square we could see one of the battlements on the northern hill side and thought about wandering up at night, but luck would have it, we drove past it on our return to Brasov, saving us the hundreds of steps to climb up to the White Tower. You can't go inside it, but it does offer some decent free views of the area around our hotel.

Next stop was the Black Church, an absolutely massive gothic church, with big bold interiors and side rooms. There was a reasonable entry fee of 20lei which you buy in the building opposite, and of course photos were allowed.

The exterior was subjected to some renovation, but it was discreet and inside was pretty jaw dropping.

Two cable cars travel in opposite directions, ferrying folks up the hill to enjoy the panoramic views by the Brasov sign, and if they have money to burn, at the restaurant and market sellers. There were limited signs but the flow of walkers to us westwards up gravel trails until we arrived to a viewing area just next to the big town sign.