The Final (for now) Post

Welcome back to our last post for a little while. We are home now, getting ready for the planning panel hearing. Jetlag, a rotten cold and the shocking weather are making me question the wisdom of coming home but I know we had to do it.

After Maddy left us in Romania we continued on to Sibiel, a gorgeous small village. We went for a walk through the lovely forest, keeping an eye open for bears. We so wanted to see one! I kept thinking of Aunty Rita and Aunty Liz doing "We're going on a bear hunt!"

Back in the village, working wells were scattered every few hundred metres.

We then headed off to tackle the Transfagarasan Road, an amazing highway that crosses over the Fagaras Mountains. The guys from "Top Gear" rated it the world's best road. We were a bit nervous about taking the bus along this road which is quite narrow in places but it turned out to be fine.

The mountains loomed mistily ahead of us.

We stopped at a small collection of buildings part way up and it was freezing! We were able to warm ourselves with these yummy pastry things that they cook over coals. They coat them with cinnamon and peanuts.

As we climbed higher, the mist got heavier.

This was one of our last views of the road before it completely disappeared into the mist. We arrived at the top where we had our accommodation booked. Our chalet was located right on a lake surrounded by stunning mountains. It sounded amazing - except all we could see was mist and rain! We couldn't raise anyone at the chalet, the rain was pouring down and it was freezing. It didn't take long for us to decide that there was no point hanging around there so we did a runner and headed off.

It was a long way to the next town but once we got a bit lower the mist cleared and we could see the gorgeous scenery around us. It's funny how things work out though......

......... we were just innocently driving along when suddenly we saw some cars stopped in the middle of the road ahead of us. To our amazement, there, right beside the road, were two bears! We were stoked! They casually grazed for a few minutes only a few metres from us before they ambled off into the forest. Wow!

We finally arrived at Bucharest, our final destination. Our hotel was great and we had fun exploring the town. It doesn't really have sites as such but it was a great place to hang around in.

 There were weird statues and lovely buildings.

In the bad old days, Ceausescu wasted 3 billion euros building this 3,000 room monstrosity. It was supposed to be for parliament but was never used. The pigeons seem to use most of it now. There was a cool art gallery in one part which we enjoyed though.

When in Rome Romania, drink as the locals do! Alanna and John enjoyed their beers from enormous pottery jugs.

One last selfie from the gang!

We had a fabulous trip. If only we could head back tomorrow.....

Thanks for following along with our little adventure. Hopefully I'll be back with more pics in a month or so.

Cheers!

Heather

Romania 2

I'm writing this from the airport at Dubai. No, we're not heading anywhere exotic - we're going home! As many of you know, we have been fighting a number of wind farm battles for years. We won our recent legal battle, but the Planning Minister has retaliated by fast-tracking the planning panel hearing we are involved in. The first hearing is next week and the main hearing begins a few weeks after that. We have to go home as quickly as possible. Fortunately, we were able to finish the trip with the kids and are heading home at roughly the same time as them.

Anyway, enough doom and gloom - back to the fun stuff!

We headed to the tiny town of Viscri. This was settled by the Saxons who have their own unique style of housing. Most Saxons left to return to Germany about 20 or 30 years ago and there are many abandoned villages.

Viscri wasn't as interesting as we thought it might be but the place we stayed in was great!

Our room was upstairs and the kids' room was downstairs.

Maddy and Connor slept in a traditional Saxon where the bottom bed is in a large pull-out drawer!

Maddy and Alanna trying on the errrr interesting local hats!

The girls bravely knocked back a Palinca - the local plum brandy - at dinner.

"Mmmmm, delicious," they said!!!!

We headed off to see the local fortified church. There are only 25 fortified churches in Europe and they're all in the Saxon lands in Romania. If nasty people are going to attack you and the strongest building is the church, it makes sense to fortify that.

We had a great time exploring this place. We found the secret staircase that led to the top and there were only a few people there. Courtney wasn't well enough to join us but we waited for her the next morning while she saw it then.

There were always interesting things on the rural roads - loose horses, gypsy families and hay being carted home

Next stop was Biertan for another fortified church. It was in great condition, and this arched walkway was lovely, but it wasn't as much fun as the Viscri one.

We then moved onto Sibiu, a large town where we thought the kids could find a bit of fun on the weekend. Again, we had great rooms. John's and mine was right on the main square.

The view from our window. Yep - it rained a lot here but mostly in the evenings.

Many houses here have unique dormer windows that look like eyes.

There are some awesome churches in Romania.

One night we hit the town. We found some great bars. We eventually left the girls to do their own thing and Maddy and Alanna had a HUGE night! The next day it was time for Maddy to leave us as she was heading off on her own European adventure. Looking slightly worse for wear (damn - I didn't get a photo!) we put her on a bus and said goodbye. It had been a fun time!

Heather

Romania - Part 1

We finally dragged ourselves away from Halki but picked up an extra person. Yep - Maddy, our niece, joined us.

We landed at Bucharest, in Romania, at dusk and went to pick up our 7-seater car, only to find that there were no 7 seaters and they wanted to upgrade us to a 9-seater bus! A big bus was the last thing we wanted but there was nothing else so we gave in and took it. It actually turned out ok providing we had 2 pairs of eyes watching the narrower roads.

We drove in the dark to our first hotel out in the country which turned out to be really weird. It was obviously very flash and futuristic when it was built but was just plain strange now. The girls hadn't eaten and the hotel couldn't even rustle up a sandwich for them.

The next day we hired a bloke with a tiny speedboat to take us out to an island on the adjacent lake to see the monastery there. The boat ride was fun and the monastery was interesting.

The next day we drove on to a town called Sinaia in Transylvania. It was amazing! We loved the gorgeous old houses with their pointed roofs and mysterious attics. It was all very Adams Familyish and very much what you would expect to see in Transylvania on a dark and stormy night!

There were heaps of places for sale all over Romania. Not sure what a place like this would cost but the maintenance would be a nightmare!

Sanaia is the base for some great mountain walking. Courtney wasn't feeling well (She has a bug of some sort and is going straight to the doctor when she gets home) so we had to leave her in our hotel. Being left in our hotel was not such a bad thing though - it was awesome! Think grand staircases and old paintings. It was also located right on a gorgeous park - it was fantastic!

Anyway, the remaining 5 of us caught a chairlift to the top then walked for a few hours. It was a fun ride.

The alpine country was spectacular. Vast open spaces filled with craggy rocks, surprisingly high hills and plenty of grass. Shepherds and cowherds grazed their stock and the sounds of cowbells echoed up the valleys.

We came across a group of horses. Some were hobbled, which is common in this country with few fences. Some of them were really friendly.

Maddy wins the prize for the cutest photo! Awwww!

We crested a hill and were somewhat surprised to see this running track in the middle of nowhere! There were people training on it. We can only assume it's a high-altitude training track although, like many things in Romania, it was in need of repairs. By the time we reached it, the people training had gone, so Maddy slipped through the fence (also in need of repair) and did a lap. She was surprised at how hard it was in the altitude. We were at about 2,000 metres.

Most of the animals were well used to being close to people. We loved the cowbells!

We found good places to eat here. The food is quite meat-focused but the three vegans had little trouble finding food. Variety was more of an issue - will it be grilled vegetables or grilled vegetables today? Alanna scored well with this enormous grilled capsicum.

We timed our departure from Sanaia around the opening hours for Peles Castle, an amazing castle in the town. However, when we got there, we found that it didn't open til later on Wednesdays. There were lots of unhappy people around! Anyway, we had a good look at the outside. It was spectacular!

The castle was set in a forest. Romanian forests are stunning - so lush and green.

But in Romania, where there are forests, there are also wolves and bears!

This reads something like - "Danger - bears!" This was right in front of the castle.

We then had a lovely day's drive exploring some rural areas. This area was very much like Switzerland with its flower-covered chocolate-box houses at the base of steep hills, but it was much more basic. The hay is all cut by hand with a scythe and is hand stooked and stacked in a unique way.

They always make the haystack around a pole but the pole isn't usually still alive!

Horse-drawn vehicles are a common sight around most of Romania. 

We went for a short walk in the forest. It was lovely.

This needs no explanation really!

We then moved onto Bran, home of the famous Bran Castle. It's supposed to be Dracula's Castle, even though Dracula didn't actually exist. It was great to explore though.

We had fun discovering secret passageways.

We could understand the Dracula t-shirts but seriously, Dracula menus?

We drove off into the country again and were delighted to find more horse-drawn wagons and storks perched on street poles.

Gypsies were around in many places. They are descended from Indians and this still shows in their bright sari-like clothes.

We arrived at Sighisoara, a gorgeous town of pastel-coloured houses. It was bloody hot though!

The town still had some old guard towers around it. We loved this one - it looked like it should be a witch's house!

I was going to try to put all of Romania into one blog post but there's just too much! Tune in very soon for the last instalment.....

Hooroo!

Heather