Apart from how placid, gentle and civilised Brasov appears to be in contrast to Bucharest, the first noticeable difference was the temperature. It’s plummeted here in the mountains and they are not expecting sunshine for a few more days time. Still, as long as the rain holds out that’s OK for me.
Randomly, the city is notable for being the birthplace of the Romanian national anthem as well as having Romania’s first school. The city also happens to be twinned with Leeds!? Also Brasov is the county for Dracula’s castle which I hope to visit.
Here are some images of the city centre (Piata Sfatului) and some other attractions; namely the Black Church and the Strada Sforii. The later being one of the narrowest streets in Europe (although Parliament street in England is apparently narrower).
The majority of Brasov can be explored in a few hours so more wandering is what I went and did. As this is a fairly large tourist town you will find a lot of amenities here that you wouldn’t initially expect to considering a lot of the areas the train stopped at on its way here.
Did you spot the ‘Hollywood’-like sign high up in the mountain?
If you didn’t, look again or just see this:
(Not taken by me as I didn’t have that amount of optical zoom!)
During my travels I reached the southern part of the once heavily fortified city. Here is it how it used to look several hundred years ago:
Here are some other photos of the fortified walls that still remain around the city:
Behind me was the Tampa Mountain and I realised I was close to the entrance point of the cable car. This I gotta do I thought to myself so I checked the fare and it was acceptable. Well, it was until she told me it was another £1 for the ride down. I was not impressed so I said I would walk down instead. Besides down is easier than up, right? Also, I imagined it to be like Mount Lycabettus in Athens…………….except it really wasn’t but more on that later.
Here I am towards the summit enjoying the view but as I eluded to in the opening paragraph, it was freezing!
I managed to get up close and personal with ‘B’. It would have been possible to have got more intimate but it would have been foolish of me to have tried on my own and especially with frozen hands.
More stunning views:
So the trek back was actually really hard. I later learned I took the difficult of the two routes but that’s what can happen when there are next to no signs at the summit in your native language! I found that quite strange but really frustrating at the time. Anyhow, the route down was genuinely quite treacherous. I was thankful that the stone/rock, amongst the mud, was embedded and so when you placed your weight on it, it held and didn’t come lose.
You might be able to appreciate some of the terrain from these shots. Note the lack of pavement and railings! I was to descend nearly 1000ft like this and it was hell.
It took me an exhausting 45 minutes to get down and each step required full concentration. It was no wonder that after I while I became dizzy and I started hear noises! Lol, seriously I did. Granted that will have been because resting in my subconscious was a sign I had saw earlier telling me that I might encounter animals like, well, foxes and um, bears!?!? Mercifully, I didn’t. But seriously I was really not impressed with the lack of information about at the summit and the general lack of interest in people that might go down that route. I don’t know how long it would have taken someone to find me if I tripped and injured myself. In fact, so pi55ed off was I that in addition to be overjoyed at having made it down to the bottom, my glove and I expressed ourselves accordingly.
Needless to say the next thing I did was go in search for a much needed treat:
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