On our first day in Romania, our guides asked Brian and I what we knew about Romania before we decided to visit. "Count Dracula, Transylvania, uhhh gypsies?" Yeah we were clueless. To be fair, we asked them what people in Romania knew about America and they said the Kardashians and Bieber.
Romania was a very beautiful country to visit, with a really interesting history. First of all, Dracula. Dracula WAS a real person, but was definitely not a vampire. The author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, basically took a few aspects of the personality of the real Dracula (Vlad III), saw a picture of a cool looking castle in Transylvania (Bran Castle), and took off writing a fictional story. Bram Stoker never even visited Romania!
There was a dude named Vlad Dracula, who ruled Transylvania in the 1400s.
We hiked 1,480 steps up to one of Vlad's fortresses, and came across these guys.
Vlad posthumously became known as "Vlad the Impaler" because of how he treated his captured enemies. Scary!
We did visit Bran Castle one day, the supposed home of Dracula. We didn't find him. We did find a massive amount of tourists that made the visit a bit less pleasant.
We also visited the much more beautiful Peles Castle.
We visited the "muddy volcanoes" of Berca, which are these mounds of built up mud, which "erupt" more mud every so often due to gases generated by oilfields deep in the ground. This was an interesting place to stop, as I had never seen something like this before. We spent about an hour wandering around, checking out the "muddies," and getting a little muddy ourselves.
Brian decided to try to walk across what looked like dried up mud, and lost a shoe in the process.
Digging out the lost shoe
Mud flowing out of one of the "volcanoes"
A few of the muddy volcanoes
Here is a video of one of the muddy volcanoes in action!
It was like two different planets!
Muddy volcanoes!
Us at the muddies... me with my nice and clean sandals, and Brian's shoes full of mud.
One of the things Romania is starting to become known for is their wine. We visited a few wineries during our time in the country and really enjoyed both the drinks and the views of these beautiful vineyards.
The vineyards of Lacerta Winery! This one had the best wine and the best tour out of the three we visited.
At dinner in a wine cellar one night.
At one of our wine tastings. Beautiful view!
The night we ordered a liter of wine. It did not turn out well.
Another winery that boasts having HUGE wine barrels!
One of our favorite excursions was bear watching in the forests of western Romania. We were forewarned that we may not see any bears, but we got lucky and saw lots! It may have helped that they threw corn and chocolate all over the area...
The bear guy, who spoke Hungarian! Our Romanian guides didn't understand a lot of what he said, but the big gun he carried spoke volumes. His shirt had a silk screened bear on it which I thought was hilarious.
On the way to the bear viewing house we encountered this guy on the trail. Oh hey, Bear. The guide made lots of noise and snapped some twigs and he ran off. We continued on our walk to the house, though a little more vigilant about the possibility of animals hiding in the woods.
Within minutes of getting to the bear watching house (a tiny shack with a wall of windows and a Murphy bed), bears started to arrive in the field. The bear guy had put pieces of chocolate on fishing line. We enjoyed watching them reach for it!
There was also lots of corn on the ground for them to nibble on.
This one got really close to the bear house!
The bear guy boasted his English speaking skills by exclaiming, "Dance, bear! Dance!" as this bear reached for his chocolate treat.
We ended up seeing a lot of bears that evening! It was a great excursion!
Another day, we took an old-fashioned steam train into the woods in the Maramures area. There's not much to say about the train ride. It was slow and we sat on the side where there wasn't a great view. Occasionally we were treated to a nice view on our side when the train came around a curve, but overall it wasn't my favorite activity.
We took a ride on an old fashioned steam train.
The view was pretty, but the train was slow.
Even with all this steam, the train didn't move quickly at all.
I was a little bored after a few hours.
Brian had a great idea to bring along champagne and OJ and make mimosas! That made the ride a little more fun. (Also, this picture makes it look like we were moving very fast. We were absolutely not.)
Much more exciting than the steam train was the hike we took to Horses' Waterfall, the highest waterfall in Romania. It was an absolutely perfect day; sunny but not too hot. The only problem was my camera battery was dead, and I didn't realize until we were halfway up the ski lift. So the cell phone camera had to suffice.
We took a chair lift up a mountain to a trail for hiking.
The most scenic outhouse!
The hike led us to a beautiful, but COLD waterfall.
It also led to very picturesque photo shoots!
Senior picture!
My favorite place in Romania was this cemetery. People usually don't like to visit cemeteries, but this was quite the unusual place. Deemed the Merry Cemetery, this resting place looks at death not as a sad event, but as a celebration of a life that ended. The tombstones are carved in wood and painted in bright colors, and included a lighthearted and sometimes humorous rhyming poem about the deceased. Oddly, the poems were written in the first person. The pictures on the tombstones were of something the person liked to do, their job, or even how they died.
The Merry Cemetery! Created in the 1930s and located in northern Romania.
We were lucky to visit with a Romanian guide, who was able to translate some of the poems for us. This one said something about "I love my tractor and I love to drink." Brian thought it was hilarious.
In this one, the boy died when he was struck by lightning (in the form of God hitting him with a whip-like object). His shirt simply says "sport" which we thought was funny.
The man who originally started doing these gravestones is buried in the cemetery. He actually carved his own cross. His apprentice continues his work.
Romania has several important monasteries from the 15th and 16th centuries in the area of Bucovina. They are special because they are painted on both the inside and the outside with frescoes of religious scenes. There are around 7 or 8 in this area, but we only visited 3 or 4.
One of the painted monasteries!
These painted monasteries are on the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.
They were painted on all sides, inside and out, with religious scenes.
The monasteries were beautifully landscaped! Roses everywhere!
We saw some actual working monasteries too, that were absolutely stunning. So many flowers!
Just one of the many different varieties of flowers the nuns care for at the monastery.
And here are just a few other random pictures from our time in Romania. We enjoyed this beautiful country and would encourage everyone to visit! The food is good, the people are friendly, there are a lot of interesting things to see... what more could you ask for???
Yay Hay!
Sunflowers were a huge crop in Romania, both for the seeds and for the oil.
So pretty!
This lion statue creeped me out!
We took the Transfagarasan Road, a 60 mile long, super curvy road that cuts through the Carpathian Mountains. It's usually only open 3 months out of the year because of snow.
Such beautiful vistas!
My favorite thing to eat in Romania was this dessert called Papanasi (pah pah nash). Fried donuts made of soft cheese, topped with cream and fruit jam. I could eat this literally every day.
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