Day on our own in Bucharesti, Tuesday, Oct 17

We will sleep in this morning, having absolutely no schedule. We make ourselves coffee and tea in the apartment and kick back, enjoying having no schedule today. Around 11:30 AM, we get dressed and wander downstairs into the city. About 3 blocks away we find an interesting lunch restaurant and stop in for a bite.

After lunch, we walk down the street and find a large park with a small lake in it. We stroll around the lake and take in the sights and the people. Back in the city streets we walk back to the apartment. We are tired from the entire vacation and we lay down for a nap.

An hour or so later, I get up and tell Elee I want to take a walk. She chooses to stay in and nap. I go out and head in a different direction, photographing a lot of very old buildings. Even an autumn display going up on a store. I keep walking, looking for interesting restaurants for dinner. I finally find a good one called “Vatra”, and I make reservations for 6:30PM. We need to eat early as we will be getting up around 3AM to leave for the airport at 4AM for a 7AM flight.

It is still time for another nap and we snooze some more. Then we head out to Vatra and get seated for dinner. The food is good and I order a bottle of Feteasca Neagra, my new favorite Romanian wine. It is so good!

Walking back to the apartment, I manage to get a few more night shots of old buildings, including one of a restaurant with an interesting name! I’m sure they mean ‘meatballs’, right?

Tomorrow will be about 9 clock hours of travel, but with time zones, it will be 19-20 hours of travel. I hope my sleeping pills work and that I can sleep on the plane! Good night everyone!

Tour and return to Bucharesti, Oct 16

Today we get an extra half hour to sleep in as Maurius will pick us up at 9 AM. We don’t really sleep in but we have breakfast and visit with our hosts and discuss things like the situation in Israel. It is a fun chat and they seem of like minds to us. But the time flies and it is time to zip up our suitcases and head out.

Maurius is waiting for us in a different car today. No more spacious van, but a more comfortable car. A car built in Romania, a Dacia (pronounced Dachia). He loads our luggage after carrying it downstairs for us and we are on our way.

Our first stop is the “White Tower”, overlooking Brasov where we have been staying. The views are spectacular. Everything is wet this morning because it rained overnight. The sky lends it’s art to our photographs with patches of blue, white and grey! There is a group of Kindergarten children here on a field trip and I have to wonder if they are getting a history lesson.

We drive on and it is a pleasant drive. Our next stop is the Fortress of Rasnov overlooking the valley below. Again the views are spectacular and the sky lends it’s art again! There is a Funicular to take you up but this time of year there aren’t enough tourists to warrant it being open. So, instead, we are taken up by large tractors towing trolley cars.

We pass by a monument to WWI soldiers on our next drive. Maurius is taking us to places while working our way back towards Bucharest. We pass through small picturesque communities and stop for lunch at Gulyas House where we have Goulash Soup and Maurius joins us and we treat him to lunch!

Our next stop is at the Monastery of Snagov on an island in the middle of Snagov Lake. This Monastery was built in the 14th Century and I am allowed to take photos inside, a privilege not allowed to many. I don’t know what the conversation was between Maurius and the docent, but my camera is allowed inside! Simply beautiful decorations, some damaged by an earthquake in 1802. All in all, a fun stop!

After we leave the Monastery, it is about an hour drive to Bucharest where Maurius carries our luggage into the AirBnB we have rented. The online descriptions sound much nicer than the construction debris strewn in the courtyard we encounter. The online description calls it a “Courtyard Garden”, we call it a mess! The apartment is nice inside but I quiver in fear at the realization that I will have to carry our luggage down and out at 4 AM in two days when we leave for the airport.

We take a nap for an hour and then look up restaurants near us. We settle on a restaurant a couple blocks away called, “Noa”, a Romanian Steakhouse. As we walk in there is a glass refrigerator in the window filled with Dry Aging Beef, from Tomahawk Steaks to Ribs to what looks like could be carved into some fantastic steaks! Wish I had known, I would have come hungrier!

We take a few night photos on the 2 block walk back to the apartment and it is time to enjoy the rest of the bottle of Red Romanian Wine that I got at the restaurant, there it was wine with dinner. Now it is sipping wine for the evening!

See you all tomorrow!

Sunday, Oct 15. More Romania

Today we arise and have breakfast at 7:45AM. Marius picks us up promptly at 8:30AM. We drive for an hour and a half and come to Zarnesti, Romania, where we find “LiBearTy”, a Bear Sanctuary where a group of impassioned people got together and began rescuing bears from circuses and other performing act places. It appears that bears in these places are severely abused and kept in cages barely larger than their bodies! AND, they are punished with food, so if they don’t perform properly, they are starved!

This group has managed to acquire hundreds of hectares of land and have fenced it to protect both bear and predators of bears. The land is described as 400 football fields in size. I pay a premium entry fee because I am carrying a professional camera. I am no stranger to this practice and I always succumb to the price. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. This time is in the middle. We are cautioned to not approach the fencing (which has 6 inch square openings that will easily accommodate my camera lenses but I am cautioned to only shoot from a distance. What did I pay a premium for?

Everybody else can shoot for free with a cell phone. Maurius tries to dissuade me from paying the extra. Perhaps he knows something I don’t? Anyway, I pay it and get the tag to wear on my jacket that says I have permission. All the money goes to a good cause, right? But, at one point, where the bears seem to be gathering but we don’t know why, one bear poses for me and I reach my camera to the holes in the fence wire and shoot some fun shots. “Sir!, Sir!” I hear the guide call. “Please get away from the fence!” I have been busted. But she is 50 yards away with 50 other people around her demanding her attention. So I keep shooting. “You will be electrocuted!”, she shouts. But I can see the electric wires and I know where my equipment and I are. So all is good.

Fearing she will call some sort of security, I back off and demurely walk back into the crowd. I follow rules from them on, but at least I think I have a half dozen shots worth while for my 10 extra Euros! It is all downhill to get out and Elee’s knees are fighting her and we are the last to leave. On the way out, we are told there are wolves. And there they are right on the other side of the fencing.

The countryside is very picturesque as we continue our tour. Haystacks and sheep farms galore! One thing we have seen many times are nests at the top of poles. Maurius tells us that Romania has a lot of storks and all the nests we see are stork nests!

We drive on to the town of “Viscri”, a quaint little town where it turns out that Prince Charles (now King Charles) bought a home here and he has done an exorbitant amount of humanitarian work here! We visit and read his story and are actually impressed for our knowledge of King (Prince) Charles history never impressed us before this.

King Charles residence tour…

We drive up the road a mile and stop for an authentic lunch at an open air restaurant. We both have a Romanian Goulash dish! The food is fantastic and we make friends with the resident dalmatian dog!

We then drive on for another hour and a half and come to a Fortress on a Hill. Many steps later and a tower climbs and my camera seems to be satiated! But I tell it to hang in there as the best is yet to come! My cameras limps on exhausted legs (or is that me?) and we plod along.

We drive on and come to another old fortress city, Biserica Evanghelica, and tour there also. Maurius walks us up into the town and the sights are amazing! My camera complains that it’s memory is tired (wait, or was that me?). We are feeling our age and contemplating why we do this. But there is still too much world and not enough time!

My camera is offered a climb of 175 steps and I swear I hear laughter coming from the lens! Or is that laughter at me because it hears me decline the climb? What?? Me decline a climb for a photo op?? Unfortunately, that is the case. So, my camera hangs it’s lens in shame, I hear it mutter to Maurius that we are done. Please take us back to Brasov. A two hour ride where my camera randomly falls asleep and dozes. (Or was that me again?) As we near Brasov, Maurius strikes up a conversation and I manage to stay awake.

Once we get back to our AirBnB, we head out in search of dinner. Uncle Google leads us astray with walking instructions and we wander for a mile or two. This does in Elee’s knees and a lovely lady who speaks English brings us to a taxi stand and talks to the driver for us. 15 Romanian Leis later and we arrive at a very good restaurant! I order a Rib Eye Steak and an told I will have to settle for a T-Bone. Horrors! Elee is feeling under the weather and orders a bowl of Romanian Soup and a plate of cabbage. The food is good and I ask the waiter to order us a taxi back to our AirBnB. The ride is less that half of our 15 Lei ride and he asks for 12. Part of me wants to challenge his price and then I tell myself that 12 Lei is $3.50 USD and the battle becomes moot.

The buildings here have fantastic architecture! I have to wonder why the bricks don’t collapse in on you! But they don’t!

So it is back to our room and time to turn in! See you all tomorrow!

Saturday, Oct 14, Bran Stoker Castle

Today we arise in the Radisson Blu in Bucharest. Breakfast is included so we indulge and it is a huge feast! Right on time at 9 AM, our driver, Maurius, arrives in a small van. We load up and he drives away. We inquire as to how many others will be joining us and he informs us this is a private tour for just the two of us! We look at each other and our eyebrows raise as we smile at each other!

So off we go on the beginning of a several hour drive. The worst part of our day again, the drive. But Maurius lets me ride up front and there are actually things to take photos of so my camera isn’t complaining! We leave Bucharest and drive into Saftica. The countryside slips by as we progress and Maurius is conversive if not the greatest English speaker. We ask questions about his life and customs and he does his best to answer.

Eventually, we run into stopped traffic which he explains is normal for the weekends. We are surprised for our heaviest traffic is during the weekdays! But after sitting in stop and go traffic for well over an hour, we come across the reason, it is a traffic cop directing traffic! Same as at home! Something interesting is vegetable and flower stands all along the road.

It rained last night and the thing I notice most is the fall foliage! It seems the overnight rain has transformed the trees into full blown fall foliage! Another fun item is how it is very common to see the road painted bright red at crosswalks!

We arrive in the town of Sinaia, where Peles Castle is and Maurius gives us a private tour of the castle! The attention to detail in the architecture and wood interior is stunning! We learn that they completed all of this in 3 short years! One can only imagine the workforce necessary to do that!

The grounds are also stunning and we thoroughly enjoy our visit!

The castle is quite clearly a wedding venue. I can only wonder what it costs to have your wedding here! So I added a few bride photos to my collection, LOL Add to that photos of photographers doing what they do best!

I ask Maurius if lunch is next as it is after 2PM. He tells us that we need to arrive at Bran Stoker’s Castle prior to 4PM or we can’t enter. And since this place is slated to be one of our highlights of the entire trip, we understand what he’s telling us. So we settle for a slice of pizza each to go and a bottle of water each and we eat on the road with Maurius permission. It is more than an hour to Bran Stoker Castle and we get to the ticket booth at 3:50PM. We made it! Once in, we have all the time we want to explore the Castle! In the town (city?) of Brasov, Judetul Brasov! (Welcome to Brasov!)

We get excited as we get closer to the Castle, lovingly referred to as Dracula’s Castle. It’s not, of course, but hey, it helps the tourist trade, right?

Maurius gives us another private tour of this Castle and he is quite knowledgeable of everything! It turns out this is where he lives! We were more impressed with Peles Castle than we are with Bran Stoker Castle and it turns out that most of the Castle has been recreated from the original. We think we have tickets to the dungeons and torture equipment, but alas, Maurius got the wrong tickets for us. It will take a trip down all the stairs to fix the tickets and then a trip back up, just to go down into the dungeons. Seems a bit much, and we do get to step into the top of the torture chambers before we are asked to leave.

So we don’t opt to get into the torture chambers but the castle is amazing in it’s own right. Our ticket are good for the elevators down to the gardens and that is where we go! We even catch the sunset on the Castle and we are good to go! Maurius shows us where the souvenirs are sold and we pick up a few things for family and friends!

Maurius takes us to our AirBnB in the town of Rasov and we check in. Maurius carries our luggage up the steep steps and all is good! Our hosts tell us of a few restaurants and we choose a close one and have Italian food cooked in the Romanian way! Getting back to our room and we are done for the night!

See you tomorrow!

Friday the 13th, October

Today we get up early and put our bags out. They are collected while we go to breakfast. We even are able to snag the front seat in the bus again! Today it is a 3 hour bus ride to Bucharest. It was supposed to have been an hour and a half but because the ship cannot navigate the shallow waters, we cannot make it to the port of choice.

So off we go along regular roads. There appears to be no highways to aid us in our travels today. With one ‘comfort stop’ at a gas station (some comfort!) we finally arrive in Bucharest. The tour guide today has a very loud voice and his bus microphone seems to be turned up to the maximum. He is very chatty and compares and contrasts the pros and cons of communism versus democracy for hours. Trying to nap is a useless endeavor. I also have to snap a photo of a smiling Brazilian photographer that I met on the ship!

He then takes us to the Palace for a tour even though it is already past noon and we are getting hungry. The Palace tour takes an hour and a half and is conducted by a Gestapo type lady tour guide that is very gruff. Interesting info though as she takes us through many rooms of the Palace and describes the life and times of the communist rulers. It is mentioned many times how the concept of communism makes everyone equal. But the ruling class is a bit ‘more equal’ than everyone else, if you get my drift.

But now many of us are becoming Hangry for it is now well past 2 PM and our tummies are screaming for relief! We are finally taken to a restaurant area and it is after 3 PM when we get seated and served. We do find a Romanian dish called, “Mici” (pronounced mee-chi) that is a sausage dish and is excellent! A couple bottles of water to quench our thirst and a couple glasses of wine and we are good to go!

Back on the bus, we are taken to our hotel, the Radisson Blu, and we check in. We discovered earlier that Elee accidentally left her camera batteries and charger on the ship. Bummer. But we find a big camera store and hire a taxi to take us there. Unfortunately, her batteries were not in stock. So it looks like she will be relegated to her cell phone camera for the remainder of the trip. That makes 2 disabled cameras because the battery charger for my small camera quit working on day one. So I got about 2 days of batteries before they drained!

We make it back to the hotel in time to join the Welcome Cocktail Hour and we visit with shipmates and share where we are all going from here! Then we head off to the pool deck and have a bowl of chili and a salad before retiring to the room for the night.

See you all tomorrow!