Last weekend we decided to visit the northern neighbour of Bulgaria, Romania. On Friday evening Maxime and I took a night bus from Sofia to Bucharest and after around six hours we arrived there, a bit exhausted and sleepy. On this first day, we mostly discovered the city with the local free city tours, we started in the morning with the tour through the old town. We learned about the mediaeval history of Bucharest, about the role model of the famous Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, about the many Churches and Inns in the old town and about the french influence on the city’s architecture. After having lunch in a local restaurant, we met up with Daniele who came from Ruse and took a little rest in our hostel. In the afternoon we then did the second free tour, this one was about the communist history of Romania and Bucharest. We visited famous places like the Revolution Square and the truly massive Palace of the Parliament and heard about the fascinating history. After nearly three hours of this communist tour, we went out for dinner with some of the people we met on the tour. It was a really nice evening, meeting so many different people. On the next day we spontaneously decided to rent a car together with three of the people we met the day before (a Brazilian, a Danish and a Portuguese) and go up north into the beautiful landscape of Romania. We visited the Peleș Castle near the city Sinaia and afterwards the Bran castle. The last one is located on the border of the historic regions of Transylvania and Wallachia and is said to be the castle that inspired Bram Stoker for the Castle of his Count Dracula, even though that is quite disputed and not really proven. Despite that, it was a truly amazing trip visiting these Castles and when we later that day took the night bus back to Bulgaria, we were truly grateful for this wonderful weekend in Romania and maybe a little bit exhausted.
Hauke
