2023 Buda to Bucha Day 11

By travelerdon on November 24, 2023

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!