We went straight into Brasov, and from the train station went to the taxis. Now common sense as a traveler, never use a taxi rank as they will most definitely mug you off. But when you arrive in a country where you do not speak the language, and you don't have a map, sometimes it just isn't an option. The hostel told us that it should not have cost more than a certain amount to get there. The first taxi driver quoted us over four times the amount! C'mon buddy, im foreign not an idiot. So 3 taxi driver's later, the price was right, and off we went.
Brasov is quite a medieval looking town, and clearly thrives off of the tourism side of it. It wasn't packed with tourists as there isn't much in brasov itself, and there are closer options to seeing Draculas castle, but it is fairly cheap, and quite pretty. The buildings are old with beautiful architecture and here is where the smallest street in eastern europe is. It was really rainy the first day but we wondered around for a bit and ended up at a quiet coffee shop. The prices where really cheap so we stayed here for a while.
The next day we got a taxi and did the 3 main tourist attractions in the area. The first stop was Bran Castle, or better known as Draculas castle. Its quite small when you compare it to castles in England, but it is definitely my favourite. It was very cozy inside, with small rooms, each having a purpose. The actual person who lived there was named Vlad Tepes, who was a pretty gruesome guy. He would chop people's heads off and put them on sticks, but his people loved him. Dracula was loosely based off of him. There was also an extra part of the castle dedicated to medieval forms of torture. I could barely stand to read some of the descriptions. A lot of the tortures where mainly created to use against witches or homosexuals. It was sick!! Only a few of the tortures are still in use today, and those would be in the less civilized parts of the world. Bran castle itself is in quite a romantic setting and very picturesque.
The second stop was Rasnov fortress. Also a fairly small fortress but on top of a large hill surrounded by forests and other hills. It is still in great condition, and now instead of houses, it hosts little souvenir shops. From the distance looking onto the fortress, 'Rasnov' is written in front of it just like the Hollywood sign! Brasov town had this as well. Not sure who did It first, the states or Romania. Last but not least, we went to Peles palace. The owners of this residence have 17 other palaces around the world as well. It looks just like a palace out of a fairytale. With little fountains and plenty of statues. The walls were painted and It had plenty of turrets as well. Once inside there are over 27 different types of wood used to decorate. Each room represents a style from a different country. He also has one of the largest weapon collections in europe, plenty of the weapons just hung up on the walls. It had hidden staircases and doors in the book shelves in the library. It is my favourite palace we have been to. It is quite remote and took us at least an hour to get to, but definitely worth it!
We headed back to the hostel, and ended up in that cafe again. The drinks are so delicious and cheap! I had two pina coladas, a large glass of rose, and matt had 3 pints of beer, all for less than €10. Such a cheap country! Romania is beautiful to travel through and has some amazing medieval architecture but a lot of it is very under delevoped, and there is garbage everywhere. Its all over the rivers, alongside the roads and in the forests. A lot of the houses looked like they had been destroyed and were now just housing squatters. Bulgaria seemed to be very similar as well. Although I felt safe travelling and did very much enjoy what we saw, I wouldn't recommend it to any single travellers or girls travelling without men. As tough as I like to say I am, if it weren't for Matt, I wouldn't have felt safe at times throughout Romania and Bulgaria.
Moving onto Bulgaria. We wanted to go to Varna and the black sandy beaches, but unfortunately time is no longer on our sides and it would have taken two night trains to get there, as eastern europe isn't up to date on the high speed train systems yet. So without much of a choice, we had to go to the capital Sofia. We hopped on a train from brasov to Bucharest which took about two hours, and then we had to wait until midnight before we could get our train from Bucharest to Sofia.
When we arrived at Bucharest station, we hopped off the train and the first thing we saw was a sign in massive letters saying to not use taxis to the right of the station as they aren't safe. Just pass the sign were at least 6 homeless people. It was dimly lit and by no means comforting for a foreigner. As we continued to walk, we were being watched by everyone, mainly men in the station. They looked at us as if we were walking bank accounts, and most of them looked pretty worse for wear. I will openly admit, I was scared. The friendliest looking place in the station was mcdonalds. We camped out here for 2 hours until it was time to board the train. Finally our train pulled up into the station. If I haven't painted a clear enough picture of the surroundings, let me describe the train for you. Please picture thomas the tank engine... then picture him 40 years later after having a meth addiction and being in an abusive relationship. This was our train. Once again, terrifying. There were no beds left, so we sat in the carriage for 13 hours, being asked multiple times for our passport and tickets, before finally arriving in Sofia. Safe to say, there Is no way in hell will we be returning the same route we came here.
Sofia is definitely the roughest city we have been to, and didn't leave a positive taste about Bulgaria. We are both sad that we couldn't make it to the coast, as we have realized that capitals dont fairly represent a country. Nine times out of ten, capitals tend to be dirty, over priced, pick pocket tourist traps. For example, if you went to italy, I would say go to venice instead of Rome. In england, go to Cornwall instead of London. In france, go to Lyon instead of Paris. In Spain go to Barcelona instead of Madrid. In Slovenia go to Lake Bled instead of Ljubljana. I think you get the point. With that being said, the Colluseum, Buckingham palace, Eiffel tower, retiro park and the bridges in Ljubljana are all must sees. Its just you have to take the good with the at times sketchy, dirty, bad. If you go to the capital of a country and hate it, dont let that be your only place in the country.
We will definitely be back in Bulgaria one day, just with plans of seeing the better, safer parts. Most of our time spent in Sofia was in the hostel due to us hiding from the police that may have been called. The story behind this one is as follows. We went to a restaurant recommended by the hostel. It was really cheap but inside looked really posh. We ordered our food, and mine came out first. I ended up completely finishing it (keeping in mind im the slowest eater) before Matts food even came out. We waited an hour from when we ordered our food, and no sign of his. So we politely asked for the bill, to which the reply was no, you need to wait. Unfortunately we didn't see the point in that. I offered to pay for the drinks, and my meal but refused to pay for a meal we never even recieved. Long story short, the manager came over and was shouting over me in bulgarian (not a pretty language to be shouted at in), refused to take our money and said to never come back. Suited us just fine as we didn't have any plans of returning.. as we walked towards the door, the waitress came back shouting at me saying we had to pay, I replied with "you have no right to speak to people the way you do, .." and kindly told her where she could go. At this point she threatened to call the cops. So we went into hiding in the hostel and enjoyed the safety and fun of scrabble, chess and figuring out how the hell to get out of this country! I would like to point out, that this story, matt and I find funny now, and by no means do I think its ok to swear at someone whilst at work. However, I would also never speak to someone, especially a customer, in the way they spoke to us. Bulgaria was definitely a funny one, and will look back at this country as the one we escaped from the cops. Next stop greece, for a safer, prettier side to europe!
