Monthly Archives: July 2007

Dracula’s birthplace

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The real one, apparently. Vlad Tepes, also called Vlad Dracul and Vlad the Impaler, lived in a little house in Sighosaura until he was around four years old. It’s now a restaurant. He must be rotating in his grave. Or on a stake. Or whatever.

The old city, the interesting part, is very small and can be wandered round in an hour or so. It’s very gritty and atmospheric with three museums which don’t take too long to visit. The main one is in the clock tower and worth the entry to get to the top for the view. Most of the main signs are in Romanian only with smaller ones being in a random choice of others. Bizarrely the first floor had a lot of rocket ships in it. It seems the chap who pretty much invented rocket-based propellants and got the US to the moon was born in a nearby town but grew up in Sighosaura. Very rightly, they’re rather proud of him.

The other two museums are the smallish armoury and the tiny torture museum (one chamber, 8 exhibits) but you can get one ticket that covers all three for a tiny price. They’re meant to open at 10:00 but don’t expect them to stick to it. The torture museum didn’t open until almost 11:00 and that was after I’d asked someone at the armoury where it was twice as I couldn’t find it.

For lunch I had a chicken roast and chips and I’m sure I was overcharged for it. I sat at Joe’s and it took ages getting served. The chicken seemed a cheap option until I came to pay for it and found that the price was “per 100g and you have had 300g”. It still didn’t ad up mathematically but it was too hot to waste my time arguing over pennies so I walked off.

A quick internet check and then I walked to the train station via the hostel to pick my bags up and jumped onto the 14:28 to Brasov. As I got on the train, several people I’d met in Cluj were coming the other direction, doing the same route as me but a day behind.

At Brasov, I was met by a nice girl from my hostel who made sure I got the right bus there. Checkin was quick, the staff superb and I was shortly settled in, showered and heading out to dinner with some people from my dorm. We found a nice pizza place where we supped wine, ate cracking food and chatted.

Afterwards we grabbed some beers from the nearby supermarket and sat in the hostel nattering until we started to drop from exhaustion.

Rapidly round Cluj

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Cluj Napoca (or just Cluj) is a lovely little place to visit with the emphasis on “little”. You can certainly walk around all the nice stuff in a day, and get some good photos. The people are nice, the streets pretty clean and it has some great buildings to go “wow” at.

On the way in on the bus – during a rare “awake” moment – I’d spotted a church next to a freeway and between a load of hi-rise flats. It was perched within its own little bit of green land, covered in wild flowers. All very cute. So I set out to find it. This turned out to mean a thirty minute walk both ways, but it was worth it – and the nettle stings I suffered plodding through the foliage to get some pictures. On the grounds I couldn’t hear the nearby traffic. All very tranquil.

I also tried to visit the zoology museum on the university grounds, but after ages wandering around to locate it, I found it to be locked up though the signs did say it was open. Not to worry. I found the ethnology museum and had a quick wander around that which was quite interesting before walking to the nearby train ticket office in the town centre to sort my ticket for that evening. Only it was closed (it being Sunday) and I had to walk to the station to organise things.

With a handful of spare change I grabbed some snacks to eat as I waited for the train, and killed some time on the internet. The crisps I got were not quite like Quavers in much the same way that carbon monoxide isn’t quite air, but never mind.

The train journey wasn’t hugely enjoyable as I’d booked one of the super-cheap ones which had no aircon and there were umpteen flies all over the place. Fast ones as well. I only managed to nail one of the buggers on the whole four-hour journey. Still, I got to Sighosaura after the sun had dropped out of the sky and walked the 50m to my convenient hostel otherwise unmolested.

The poor guy at the desk was exhausted after working a longer shift than he’d been expected, but was still friendly and helpful despite not being able to check me into my room. The one other person staying there had gone out for the night with the only key! As a result, I ended up in a room of my own with a telly showing Soulfly videos. What a shame…

I popped out for some snacks and a beer across the road before everywhere shut for the night then crashed out in a very comfy bed.

Snooze to Cluj

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That’s more or less I did all day. Up at the crack to jump on an 8-hour coach ride to Cluj Napoca in north west Romania. I slept most of the way and walked from the drop-off point to my hostel in the warm evening sunshine.

The one thing that surprised me was the time zone change. I never thought I’d have to adjust my watch again until I returned to the UK, but Romania (and Bulgaria I’ve since discovered) are on GMT/UTC + 2. I’m still not sure exactly how long the coach ride was between the time change and my overall tiredness.

My welcome at the hostel was warm, to say the least. A little table brought in with tea and a bucket of biscuits on as I was checked in and shown all the sights on a map. Really sweet staff!

As darkness fell and it got moderately cool, I went for a walk and grabbed a burger from a place along the street. It was OK, but strange – I think it was the large amount of cabbage they put on it that gave it the taste. When in Romania… A session on the interner, a quick beer with some people from the hostel and bed followed. I’d save the sightseeing for daylight.

Buda and Pest

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Somehow I rose at 9:30 for the free breakfast (bread, juice, jam) and a shower. I braved the bright sunshine and walked round to meet Nik who was waiting for a girl called Heidi. They’d met on another train somewhere and she lives in Budapest, working for a school somewhere. She’d given the usual traveller’s promise of “turn up and I’ll show you round” which she proceeded to do.

She showed us a lot of the sights in Pest, putting her three-year stint in Budapest to full use. The Opera House with its grand interior, 2nd largest synagogue in the world (apparently, the largest is in New York) [EDIT – I checked on Wikipedia and the largest is in Jerusalem, second in New York and third here] with it’s lovely memorial garden, the millenium monument, Basilica with mummified hand (which lights up when you put money in a box) and the statute to Anonymous – nice but I’m not sure if it’s a good likeness or not.

We caught a Metro (lovely wood-decorated stations) down to the riverside where Heidi left us to find our way over to Buda on the other side. The castle looks more like a palace – imagine Buck House rather than Balmoral. It houses some museums and galleries, none of which we went in, and the view from the top is rather nice. The one building we did see from up there that really impressed me was the Parliament. A shame we didn’t have the time to get closer, but it’s certainly a lovely structure with huge spires and a maroon roof which almost looks like velvet.

Through the baking heat, we walked back down to my hostel where I sorted out some hostels and we wandered around to find the bar we’d been in the night before. The lovely barmaid was there… armed with a Hungaro-English dictionary! We spent an hour finding a bookshop where Nik bought an English-Hungarian one so they could try to communicate.

I don’t know where the time went as we stood around swallowing cheap beer. When I left Nik at closing time, he and the barmaid were at the “holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes” stage. I was at the “which way is up and am I walking in a straight line” stage.

Hungry for Hungary

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Early doors, I checked out and went to a bagel place for a filling and rather tasty breakfast. While I was sat there, a young French guy from the hostel came in and we got talking before hopping in a tram to the station. Just before we left, we had a giggle at a cute little baby in a pram who’s mother was being served. She was sat there, banging hear head and playing air drums to music on the radio – obviously her parents have good taste!

At the station, I bumped into a Finnish guy called Nikolas who was also heading to Budapest and we shared a carriage with a Hungarian guy on his way home from working in the UK for 6 months.

As we neared Budapest, some tourist information person knocked on the door. “Uh, oh”, I thought, “People here trying to fleece us.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Once he ascertained that I already had a hostel (“It is good place, in good location”) he made sure I was loaded up with maps and directions on how to get there. Nikolas chose another hostel, one recommended elsewhere and which I had considered, and we agreed a time for me to walk down and catch him for a couple of beers.

Nikolas jumped in a free bus, while I chose to walk. Budapest struck me as “just a big city” as I hiked down one of the main roads and this is true for the majority of it. As I was to discover, there are some hidden gems but much of the city is fairly modern.

The hostel I picked (the Astoria) was pretty decent with nice staff. I made full use of the shower and internet before walking down to catch up with Nikolas. The kind staff at his place looked up the location of the only KFC in Budapest for us and we went there (via the station) for dinner. This was a huge treat for Nikolas as he loves the stuff but there aren’t any branches in Finland.

Now it was time to enjoy more eastern European beer! The first bar we found was typical of many in Budapest – down a flight of steps and very small, but crammed with atmosphere and friendly locals. We had a couple of large beers for what amounted to maybe 55p each while watching some of the U21s football on the telly. Time to move on and we scoured the streets for another watering hole, aiming for somewhere off the beaten track.

We located one and, again, descended the steps. As could be expected, the barmaid was beautiful (I mean beautiful) and the locals friendly, especially the chap we sat with who was in his 50s and had studied English for three months. He chatted to us and translated Nikolas’ flirtatious comments to the barmaid for several hours as we downed beer and just enjoyed ourselves.

As the bar neared closing time a bunch of backpackers came over and we made plans to meet them elsewhere. We walked off, dropped things at our hostel and found the place they had been talking about… only they didn’t show. It was late and the beer was really expensive, so we had one each and then walked back to our hostels. 3:30am on my first night in Budapest. And a promise that I’d catch Nikolas around 11:00 the next day.