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Since Dracula didn't come to us, we thought we'd go hunting again for him. It was off to Bran Castle today. Although, it's very unlikely that Vlad Tepes (aka Dracula) ever visited Bran, Bran castle was used in his era and is representative of the castles back in the 15th century. Built in 1378, the castle played a strategic defensive role, built into the hillside. After losing its defensive role, the castle was passed to the local town, later to be occupied by Austrian soldiers, and circled back to the monarch once again in the 19th century. It was willed to the duchess of Austria, but finally passed back to the town after WWII. Now, of course, it's one of the most visited places in Romania, and the locals try to sell it as "Dracula's Castle", with many vendors on the way in selling Dracula paraphernalia.
There were no announced stops on the bus, so when we saw the castle ahead, we got off. Within a few minutes, it started to rain, so we decided it was time for lunch. We stopped in to, go figure, a pizza shop for lunch. The pizza here isn't made in the traditional Italian way - usually very little pizza sauce, and they like to add sweet corn on it as well. Strange flavor, but not bad. By the time we were finished, the rain had stopped. We walked up to the castle, and paid the $3.5pp to enter (along with a $3.75 camera fee). The castle was cold! And it started to rain again while we walked through. Some of the rooms had furniture from when the queen lived there in the early 1900's, while some of it were reproductions from the queen's original furniture. Some of the wood carvings in the thick dark wood were really amazing. It was a lovely quiet stroll through the many rooms, at least until the bus loads of school kids caught up with us and screamed and ran through all of the rooms. Seemed like they were having a good time though, so we didn't really mind.
We had to wait 50 minutes for the posted bus departure, so we grabbed a beer and a snack and hung out in the cafe in front of the bus stop. The bus ride back was quick and at least a little warmer than it was outside. We retreated back to our hotel room, but it was also cold. :( We are hoping Hungary will be a lot warmer than here! After a small dinner, and we called it a day. We'll see what happens with Dracula tonight.
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Very very cold here at night. We found out there's no way to turn on the heat - maybe that's why our room is only $20 :). Luckily they give you very heavy blankets! This is one of the darkest rooms we've stayed in (and I already said coldest), let me also add quietest. A good setting for a night in Transylvania. To our dismay, nothing happened in the night. Around 5:30am, I awoke to birds singing outside. Oh well, maybe tonight Dracula will come visit us.
Yesterday, we had negotiated $25 off our hotel stay by removing the "breakfast included" option. Funny, the food is so cheap here, why would you ever include breakfast!? We had chocolate crepes for breakfast for just $2pp, and then took a $2 cab to the bus station. The taxi driver actually took us to the wrong bus station, but thankfully, we recognized it was the wrong one (Autogara 1 instead of Autogara 2). After explaining that we had told him Autogara 2 when we got in, he continued on to the right destination without any issue. He was very nice, and was trying to refuse our tip, saying it was his responsibility that he didn't take us to the right bus station (but we gave him the 10% anyways :)). Nice guy though - usually I would expect a taxi driver to take as much money as possible (as we have heard of taxi drivers of Romania really trying to take advantage of locals and tourists alike). Always good to see there are still genuine people despite some bad apples.
We only had to wait about 10 minutes for the bus to Bran (it leaves every 1/2 hour). For $1 each, the bus took us the 45 minute ride to Bran. Along the way, the scenery was of beautiful mountain meadows, with locals going about their daily routine, including many in their horse drawn carriages. Seems like the horse carriage is still a popular way to get around here. Also, it appears as if most of the work done in the fields is still done by hand instead of machinery. Gives you an idea about how poor of a nation this still is.
When we were ready to leave, a hard downpour started. We huddled in a small doorway and waited out the rain. The cold weather got colder, and we were really missing our warm times in SE Asia :). After 30 minutes, the rain lightened up, and we ventured out of our hole and back outside. We left the castle and walked down to the open air museum, which, like Skansen in Sweden, contained homes from around the country. They were somewhat interesting, but much of the interior was locked, and not staffed well. Most importantly, there was no one working the old stove heaters! :). We didn't spend much time there, and decided that with 3 hours of cold, and the on and off rain, we were ready to head back to Brasov.