A Taste of Eastern Europe

View from our Hostel Window in Simbui

Loving the fresh veg in Simbui

Clock tower in Simbui

On our "local" Hike in Sigasora
Castle Bran, Dracula's Castle
Top of the world in Sinia
View from our hostel window in Bucharest
I thought only France had one of these!
Protesting in front of the balcony where Communism fell in Bucharest (Revolutionary Square)
On our Train to Bucharest
Who ever really grows up??

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay between posts over the last month or so, but as we found in Egypt, Eastern Europe has proven to be a little difficult to find a computer made in the last five years or an internet connection with enough speed to load a few pictures!

Technological short comings aside, Eastern Europe has really surpassed both of our expectations in beauty, people, culture and food! We have been quite busy since our last post, hoping from country to country and from town to town. In a brief overview we left Istanbul on an overnight train to Sophia, Bulgaria and from there we headed north to Romania, where we have now been for about a week.

The train ride from Istanbul to Sophia was a little less than comfortable, but what it lacked in comfort it made up in experience, a stereotypical Eastern Europe experience that is. Our cabin conductor looked and acted like an ex KGB member and I am pretty sure the train almost derailed a few times through out the night! But it was all part of the fun and we made it to Sophia, so all's well that ends well eh?

We only spent a few days in Sophia, but really enjoyed our time spent there. It was a small city with a really relaxed feeling to it. We strolled the streets and walked past the few real monuments the city has to offer. The most interesting part of the city was a small open market where some venders were selling old authentic WWII German, Bulgarian and British memorabilia. It included everything from old guns and knives, to watches, medals and binoculars. It was really fascinating to see all these treasures that had just been gathered from the old battlefields around the country.

From Sophia we ventured up to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. All we had heard of the city before arrival was that was very boring architecturally and still struggling from its Communist days and that there really was not much to see. However, we found this all to be wrong. The Parliament Building there is the the second largest building in the world (second to the Pentagon). It has over 3,400 rooms and is incredibly impressive to look at. From there stretches a long straight road that is 3 meters longer than the Champs Elysee! Although, this impressiveness did not come at no cost. It took a dictator's crazy ambition for Romania to be perfect and beautiful like the west so he thus bankrupted the country and flattened 1/6th of the city to build it.

Next to our hostel was a beautiful park with gorgeous gardens filled with Tulips and other spring flowers, a lake with rowboats for rent, couples out for a romantic stroll, old people taking sun baths, youth laughing jovially and trees with such newly sprouted leaves they looked almost neon green. All in all it was the beginning of Spring and the city was out to enjoy the blue skies and warm weather.

We left Bucharest after two days to head west into the countryside and hang out in Transylvania, the region made famous by Bram Stoker's Dracula. Our first stop was Sinia. It is a small mountain town surrounded by beautiful hills and snow-capped mountains. We took a gondola to the highest point of the mountain and let our eyes indulge on the magnificent 360 degree view of nothing but nature, snow covered mountains and steep cliffs. The town was really small and only a day trip on our way to Brasov.

We arrived in Brasov on the Eastern Orthodox Easter, a week later than ours, so unfortunatly NOTHING was open! But we made lemonade out of our lemons and our entire hostel, a group of French students, A few Aussies, another American group from Boston and us all purchased the ridiculously cheap beer they have to offer and turned our hostel common room into a night of laughs, excessive drinking, more laughs, and of course deep political talks (although much less of the ladder than the excessive drinking and laughs!)

We did manage to take a bus ride from Brasov to Castle Bran, the castle Bram Stoker was to have based Dracula's Castle off. It was eerie looking and very fitting for the Count to live in, but the grounds were closed and we could only see it from the outside. Also, Dracula is a major tourist trap here and the countless Dracula masks and t-shirt stands out front really took away from the creepy atmosphere of the castle!

From Brasov we left for Sigasora. This was a truly beautiful town with an old town from the middle ages located on top of a hill with the new town surrounding the foot of the hill and all of this nestled at the base of surrounding, tree-cover, hills. Our trip to Sigasora was another train ride we will never forget! We called it the Gypsie Express. The four of us traveling together were the only four non-Gypsies on the entire train. It was a CRAZY experience. We witnessed everything from yelling at the conducter because they had not bought train tickets, to bags upon bags of clothes, to little children begging, to a mother beating her kid sensless, to the pulling of the emergency stop on the train in the middle of two stops because the village had two Gypsie clans and they were at war and the train station was located in "the other clans" territory. Needless to say, we did not sleep to much on the train and kept our belongings very close, but it was a great experience.

In Sigasora, we befriended the guy working the reception desk and he took us hiking all the next day and really showed us some amazing views and places that only locals would know about. He told us of growing up during the revolution. He was our same age so it was really interesting to hear how different of a growing up experience he had from us. He vividly recalls loving to watch the Communist Rallies on TV and that his mother almost got shot because of him and his support for the Communist Party, he was a four year old at the time!!

We are now in Simbui, another small town and leave tomorrow for Budapest. We are both really excited to discover a new country and see Budapest, which every traveler we have come across has spoken so highly of. We are alos meeting our good friend Rem who has flown out to meet up with us for a few weeks! We will keep you posted on our adventures!