Bucharest to Braşov
Distance travelled = 203 kilometres driving by road and 10.75 kilometres walking (14,325 steps).
After two days exploring Romania’s hectic capital city, it was good to get out of “the big smoke”. I remember Bucharest being smoky in 1987 because of the old, poorly tuned car engines. It is still very smoky, but these days the main pollutant seems to be the excessive open use of cigarettes.
Driving directly non-stop from Bucharest to Braşov, which is a distance of 165 kilometres on good roads, would normally take about two and a half hours. I set out this morning just before 9:00am and arrived just over seven hours later. The reason, of course, is that I made some stops on the way.
Following overnight rainfall, the sun was shining brightly as I drove north from Bucharest on Highway 1, marvelling at how little traffic there was compared with the weekday conditions I had experienced over the previous two days.
The first hour of driving was unspectacular, crossing a wide, flat plain with lots of cornfields. As the road began to climb into the Southern Carpathian Mountains, the temperature dropped sharply (from 23°C to 16°C), the clouds gathered overhead, and the rain fell steadily for about half an hour.
My gloom lifted as I approached the skiing resort town of Sinaia as the clouds parted to reveal clear, blue skies above spectacular alpine landscapes that would not be out of place in the Swiss Alps. The timing was especially good because my first stop was situated in the mountains just a few kilometres west of Sinaia, an amazing structure known as Peleş Castle.
This extravagant, fairytale-like structure is relatively new, having been built from 1875 to 1883 for the then-King Carol I. Surrounded by hills that look very Swiss, and set in a landscape that resembles an English garden, the exterior of Peleş Castle is baroque-Bavarian in style. The interior rooms – all 160 of them – are an eclectic mix of architectural styles inspired by many nations and cultures (except Romanian I think), the uniting theme simply being extravagant quality.
One of the great features of travel in Romania is that seniors receive significant discounts on entry fees. In the case of Peleş Castle, the senior discount is 50%, so I made the most of that and opted to see all three floors of the castle (seniors pay 25 lei per floor, so three floors cost 75 lei, or $22.50 Australian). I won’t try and describe the extravagance of Peleş Castle; I’ll let the selection of photos here do the explaining.
Leaving Peleş Castle, I made a short stop at Sinaia Monastery (founded in 1690) and then continued driving north to Bran. Driving into Bran it was immediately obvious that tourism is a highly significant industry in the town, all centred around the Castle – apparently Romania’s number 1 tourist attraction.
Bran Castle (which is also known as Dracula’s Castle) looms broodingly above the town. In the somewhat gloomy, hazy, overcast conditions of the afternoon, it was easy to imagine its purported link with Dracula – the real one, a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler. Built in 1377 to 1383 to guard the narrow mountain pass at Bran, the only link – a tenuous one at that – with Vlad the Impaler is that he may have laid siege to it in 1460. Irrespective of the historical reality, the castle does look like the kind of place where you might imagine a Transylvanian vampire count might choose to live.
It took me 40 minutes of standing in line to buy my entry ticket, a fairly uncomfortable experience as I was surrounded by smokers who seemed to need constant nicotine input while waiting in the queue. Having finally purchased my ticket, I took the famously steep pathway up the castle and made my way through the building. The interior of the castle was interesting but very much an anticlimax after Peleş Castle – the real appeal of Bran Castle is its exterior appearance and setting, and the excellent views of the surrounding countryside from some of the higher windows and balconies.
As I emerged from touring the castle’s interior the clouds cleared and the sunshine illuminated the castle. I took the opportunity to get some more exterior photos, and I even drove a kilometre or so beyond the castle to stop by a small church and get some nicely lit angles looking back towards the castle.
The third castle I planned to see today (or more precisely, a citadel rather than a castle) was Râşnov Fortress, a short 20 minute drive from Bran. Although the gloomy haze had returned to hide the sunshine once again, Râşnov Fortress was visible many kilometres away due to its spectacular mountaintop situation. When I arrived, I was told the unfortunate news that it has been closed for renovations for over a year, so I left and finished my drive into Braşov, my destination for the day.
I had chosen to stay at the Aro Palace Hotel, the same hotel we had been allocated by government officials when we visited in 1987 (in that era visitors didn’t choose their hotel – visitors were allocated to their accommodation). I’ll reserve judgement rather than make a premature evaluation, but initial impressions are that the exterior looks as run-down as it did in 1987 but the interior seems to have been modernised and repaired.
When I arrived at the check-in desk, I was asked “is this your first time at the hotel?” I replied “no, I stayed here in July 1987”. The attendant replied, “oh, so long ago – I don’t think we will have your profile in our files”. I thought, but I didn’t say “I guess the files from 1987 were kept by the Securitate (the Secret Police) rather than the hotel”. As I was filling in the form to create my profile for the hotel’s files, she began admonishing me saying “It is too long since you have stayed here. Why have you waited so long? There can be no excuse!”. And no – she wasn’t joking or saying this in anything like a light-hearted manner.
The skies continued to darken and a quick check of the weather forecast showed heavy rain predicted for this evening (accurately as it turned out – it’s pouring torrential rain outside as I’m typing this), with possible rain continuing tomorrow. In view of that forecast, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little preliminary exploring of the old centre of Braşov, which is located immediately behind the Aro Palace Hotel.
Although the historic town square was buzzing with lively action, including a free opera production on a very well equipped stage, everything looked fairly dull because of the dark skies overhead. Therefore, I decided to explore the interior of one of Braşov’s most famous buildings, the Black Church.
Built between 1385 and 1477, the Black Church is the ‘cathedral’ of the Lutheran denomination in Braşov. Its name arose following the city’s Great Fire in 1689 after which the building had a charred appearance. As one might expect in a Lutheran church, the interior of the Black Church is fairly plain, and indeed somewhat spartan, even down to the heavily worn, old bare wooden floorboards.
There were a few splashes of sunlight between the heavy grey clouds as I emerged from the Black Church, leading me to speculate that the forecast may be wrong as I snapped a few beautifully lit streetscapes. Sadly, it was not to be – the sunlight lasted only about ten minutes before the overcast conditions returned – a prelude to the rain that is forecast to last all night at least.
