These last few blog entries, for me has been one of - if not The hardest part of the whole trip! The finality of posting these entries means that eventhough we got home about 4 weeks ago, the adventure really is at an end now. Just the last few places to tell you about.......
The previous entry saw us leave Turkey and from that point we headed back into eastern europe en route to meeting my parents for a long weekend in Budapest. We drove up the eastern coast of Bulgaria along it's very pleasant riviera and our first major stop was in Bucharest, where we went to have a look around inside a church with the most amazing frescoes. Hopefully Adam can dig out the relevant photos (!!)
Whilst in Romania we decided to go on the hunt for Dracula or Vlad Tepes the Impaler - which was great fun and resulted in us visiting his birth place Sighisora, where we walked up through the pretty old town towards the aptly named Church on the Hill through a very atmospheric covered walkway complete with wooden steps and cobwebs, we wandered around the graveyard and admired the wardens house. We couldn't resist a visit to Bran castle as well. The castle was really grand and had an interesting history aside from it's very tenuous link to the man himself, although when we arrived i think Adam was a little dissapppointed at the scale of the castle and that there were no bats flying from it or plumes of dry ice to add to the spooky atmosphere!!
We managed to get some suitably tacky souveniers such as tankards & amusing postcards before heading off up into the Marmures region. On the way we visited Rasnov with it's citadel which we had fun exploring and also it's rather odd giant hollywood style sign towering over the hamlet.
Romania was such a pleasant surprise and i would go as far as to say it was one of my favourite places. The scenery in Transylvania was absolutely stunning, the mountains, lush & verdant forests and scale of the region were so impressive - and we were lucky to still have the glorious weather with us too.
We had some of the nicest camping although at times it was a little difficult to find. One afternoon we were lucky enough to explore down a track which led us to a perfect pitch by a river. We had a lazy afternoon, a few of the local beers & a nice supper. As it got to dusk we notcied a clanking sound and wondered what it could be. Adam saw out of his window a rather large herd of cattle approaching, i thought we had accidentally parked up in a farmers field - & not for the first time - but Ad said that the herd appeared to be unsupervised. It was the strangest thing, as the sun went down Treacle was surrounded by a rather curious crowd of cows. The sound of their bells, the river burbling away and the steady cruch, rip of them pulling out mouthfuls of grass on their way home was a wonderful if slightly strange experience.
I was rather reluctant to leave Romania as it had truly surpased my expectations but Adam had found 2 great looking places in Hungary and suggested we visit those in the time we had left before meeting up with mum & dad.
Tokaj was the first place and at my sugestion (insistance) we checked into a pension for the first time since leaving turkey - i was surprised we even got a room we were quite dirty, tired & stinky by then. The woman who ran the place was very welcoming & friendly and it was immaculate, we were really happy. We went out for a delicious meal and a glass of the local wine - which was a semi sweet white and very tasty and had a lovely meal of chicken tokaj style with prunes and sauce, veg and the sorely missed chips!! The restaurant overlooked the river and it was a great evening, candle lit meal and chilled wine - bordering on romantic!!
the next day we went on to Adam's second choice - Edge, happily another wine tasting town! This time we stayed at a campsite within staggering distance of the cluster of wine cellars at the end of the valley in a horseshoe arrangement.
The price worked out at about £0.30 a glass so even at this late stage in the trip on the last few pennies we were still able to enjoy ourselves and sample a variety of wines. Yeay!
At the campsite we noticed a lady camped up on the ridge above us, eating alone so i went up to share some of the wine we had bought with her. She was called Heddy - i think - and we arranged to stroll up to one of the wine cellars the following evening. The next day we did All our laundry of which there was a rather aromatic mountain, Ads drank about a litre of the loacl red wine that we had bought the evening before & then had a big snooze sprawled out under a tree at the campsite - snoring quite loudly - whilst i read a book. We both caught the sun a fair bit that afternoon, then i t was time to go for drinks with our new friend. She took us to a little cellar that we had previously overlooked and it ran twice as deep back into the hillside than any of the others we had been in. It was dark, dank, cold and musty and very "local". We sampled a glass of the infamoous Bulls Blood - quite strong and dry - then went back to the sweeter variety. The owner brought over a special glass tube to dispense our wine - a strange stem into which he had sucked up some of the wine from the barrel, rested it on his shoulder and then let the wine orush out into the glasses by sliding his finger off the end of the spout... what a delight to watch!
We were sad to leave our new friend the next day - and i do regret that we didn't exchange details. She had been on the road cycling through europe on her own for two years and i really enjoyed her company - an eccentric character to say the least. When she told me the previous evening that she was an avid reader and that she had nothing left to read i decided to give her my treasured copy of
The Gargoyle which my dad had bought for me on a trip to london before we left. It is one of the very few books i have read more than once - it was compelling, moving and brilliantly written and i was happy to give it a new home.
