We were searching for Dracula... but we found a wonderful country, instead... Romania

Eyes still surprised when faced with such beauty. Bearing of garlic and wooden in the footsteps of fake Dracula, we open the doors of nosro heart this extraordinary country. Too many clichés and a lot of superficiality should be deleted forever. Romania is a beautiful country, rich in ancestral traditions, distant and fascinating tastes sweet as the hills of Transylvania, the proud people like the majestic peaks of the Carpathians and a gothic and intriguing. The frescoes of the monasteries in the mountains, to the sinister alleys of Bistrita, the stratospheric beauty of black pearl, Sighisoara and the simple rural life of the green countryside where time has stood still leaving this land an absolute primacy in Europe. a small-sized piece of bucolic life, simple and remote, a now untraceable. Nostalgia strong. Greater Romania. A wonderful discovery, a good lesson to learn, a bitter defeat for us stupid skeptics. Go and tell me. Good trip.

 

We were searching for Darcula, but we found a marvellous country...

Romania .. kids .. how many emotions, that wonderful surprise ... here is my story.

Imagine a rickety train, a desolate moor, a station is the unknown ... a night passed .. the train coming from Budapest Nyugati railway station, the station where you are now is that instead of Cluj-Napoca, gateway to the magical and dark TRANSILVANIA!
The excitement of travel is measured with the adrenaline and the strange shape of fear / mistrust / ignorance that is holding us when we are in different places in our everyday imagination. .. And then we arrived. After almost 7 hours and a half journey across the flat plains of Hungary and noisosa, we arrived at Oradea, a town of some importance on the Romanian-Hungarian border ...
In my company there is Stephen, desperately seeking to retrace the steps of Count Dracula, literary imaginary, hastily accumunata Figure dell'Impalatore, Prince Vlad Tepes. Stephen, as a Susy Blady Genoese decided to bring to light the hidden truth about the legendary Vlad Dracul and do some 'clarity on this mysterious story on the boundary between myth and reality --- bahhhh .... I was rather substantially a scetticone and say that is not from me ...
But you know ... the commonplaces kill curiosity and prejudice feed lîgnoranza all of us ... then we drink to our information and we think we know something .. WRONG!
Do not ever believe the rumors and the nonsense of those who did not raise her beautiful armchair by secretly ... try first-hand the things that you want to know, try to always look a little 'more than it will be one of the most beautiful treasures that will bring you inside .. forever.

First stop the beautiful and elegant Cluj-Napoca: city of Orthodox churches, tree-lined avenues, beautiful people and elegant cafes.
The night before the atmosphere of gloom he had already captured for the little-lit streets, looking to open a supermarket where you can buy something, we tasted this strange city. Its dark halls, its open windows disturbing, gloomy figures wander along its streets .. but it was only a distorted perception of reality.
Cluj is the most advanced cities across Romania. Young fashionable, beautiful rooms, restaurants and shops ... Western-style buildings, often a little 'decadent, but recall a glorious past: here as elsewhere, the Austro-Hungarian empire has put the zampino, building and rebuilding, leaving his indelible imprint on the structure and the small town way of life.
We visit the city first by the beautiful terrace of the Hotel Victoria, the most beautiful city, unfortunately only open to two in the morning, and then scorazzando the streets, looking for first visit and then to the desperate search for an agency to rent a 'car.

Having shot your head off, we rely on such giants manon Adrian, Romanian omonia that entrusts a gray Opel Astra ... around us people speaking the Romanian traffic of Cluj, throw down as saliva Jerry uncinata in the hands of Tom and note that driving here is really an adventure ... and how!

BISTRITA / WESTERN CARPATIA

It 'an extraordinary succession of small towns, churches Saxon, eccentric constructions of wood, with pointed roofs decorated with black crosses, flowers and yards of ivy arrampicante where run piglets and calves, older people who spend the late afternoon with lost in the gaze of the mythical machine sfreccianti highway E-56.
We arrived late at night in Bistrita. Here, according to legend, the visitors Strambi of the castle of Dracula, spend the last night accompanied by the authorities of the place. From here onwards, towards the BorgoPasso, should proceed on their own.

Bistrita seems set of a film in the purest style of Hollywood films of fear means.
The atmosphere is very charming: the great Lutheran church towers in the center of the city, all around are wooden buildings that date back to medieval times. Case apparent monstrous face the big green square Unirii the Sibila come like crying, the church seems empty, scarnificata, old and decrepit. Trees gutter on the streets, moving several large branches of dark green leaves, dogs bark in lontanza ...
Hence our motto: Bistrita (reads bistriza) ... Winking!
Fortunately the night goes quiet, even dinner at a wonderful place, in the middle of a park along the river-based ciorba (a sort of spicy goulash less), mamaliga, more tasty polenta, meat, cabbage salad and delicious red wine.
We leave the city and we head towards the hills of the Eastern Carpathians: If possible, the reality of the mountain is even more remote and closed off and inaccessible. The means of transport are wooden carts drawn by cows macular girls playing with acquiloni, the elderly infagottate sell all kinds of vegetables ... all in a bucolic and peaceful.

The road will take us up to almost 1900 meters, via Vatra Dornei, the BorgoPasso. Here the legend draculoide constructs the myth of the passage between Transylvania and Moldova: a step which resulted in the unfortunate travelers mouth Dracula's true! Here .. unfortunately ingnoranti and rich Americans have built a mega super hotel, Hotel Dracula .. with appropriate themed restaurant and themed rooms. Construction horrendous and disproportionate compared to the huts nearby, the Hotel offers its visitors a surprise gustova .. .. We could not hidden away ... we are trapped.
Accompanied by a curious waitress, visit the rooms of the hotel, until you get to the crypt where it seems to be buried Prince Vlad ... (actually located in Bucharest).
The fear is great .. I do not sennò story when there will be no more taste. However, I am still alive .. then do not worry!

Our destination is Bicaz, but the dark night of the mountains near us .. we have to hurry .... Having the wrong way twice, we decide that Bicaz and its industries of asbestos (sic sic) are too far away for now and we head to Durau, a small village at the foot of Mount Cealhau. The landscape is beautiful, we come across a series of frescoed monasteries and Orthodox cemeteries, broad valleys of conifers and oak trees, lawns, roses and sweet hills premontane.
Durau is a major ski resort, now in September is completely deserted but still retains its charm straordiario. A monastery of 35 Orthodox nuns, with beautiful frescoes and fantastic outdoor frescoes interior stands on the highest point of the country. Here we present the Letan 18.00 admiring disbelief rituals of prayer so different from those of us more popular.
Sleep in a house operated by a lady called "the Bifolco", un po 'in appearance from Fred Flintstones woman, a little' for the speech and manners hoarse from drain port. But the house is wonderful, the beautiful garden of flowers, in the Open, only the passage of the stream and the howling of strange beings in the forest ... sic sic

Bicaz arrive the following day, admiring the extraordinary gorges Bicaz, white limestone formations that create gullies and walls of granite that cut the mountain into a thousand pieces, creating small pertugio chasm where the road that we follow. High walls, annoying mist, green, lakes a thousand colors, colorful autumn leaves that Romanian .. surprised.

From Bicaz and leaving behind the Red Lake, we head to Sighisoara .. the pearl of Transylvania. We even a quick glance to Moldova, with a promise to ourselves, the promise to return one day to go towards Suceava, Moldova and northern Bukovina, where the monasteries such as Durau there are galore. Do not doubt, it is really worth!
Returning to the Transylvania we find that the landscape changes continuously from conifer green, you go to the sweet hills of yellow and orange, and then admire pastures and fortified churches in the middle of the dark green forest intricate. The villages have a more gentle and less dark, here everything is taken care of the smallest detail, large gardens, beautiful houses, restaurants and craft shops, fine colored squares, a dance performance, music, ect .. and then we see why ... we are in the midst of the so-called Hungarian Transylvania. Gheorgheni and Odorhieu are flagships of the Hungarian community in Romania: one speaks Hungarian, Hungarian eat .. that is how you live in Hungary but has Romanians .. strange no? Presents the history, games in hand of the powerful who have written pages, dividing the people, despised and sometimes creating hatred and resentment.
Sighisoara .. We are in a word: the most beautiful.

SIGHISOARA, BRASOV, BRAN, BUCURESTI

Sighisoara is one of the cities fortified by Saxon community that came here to populate the earth after the great battles against the Turkish armed forces. Built around the magnificent clock tower, the city is perched on various levels, with a medieval citadel that looks like a forgotten gem from the new architects, the restoration and modern by the winds of newness.
Through the kind help of Arpi, a Romanian giovincello find refreshment at the house of a lady whose name we do not know, for a price very favorable and we visit this beautiful medieval town.
From the halls of torture, to the church on the hill, the temple of the Lutheran faith alleys and squares typical of the Middle Ages. At night, while walking ... a lugubrious organ sound comes from some rooms of the Lutheran church, spreading chills and glances of uneasiness among the people .... In the garden, to the left of the main Lutheran church is exposed in the left chest stone of Vlad Tepes, reminding visitors that the same square was once home of the main events "social" community Saxon: torture, masked balls, burning for witchcraft.
Eat right where Prince Vlad Tepes, Prince of Transylvania and Wallachia, spent four years of his life now that place has become the restaurant Dracula. Despite its name, however it eats its own good and waiter moustached is really nice.

Reluctantly leave the beautiful Sighisoara, and take the road to Brasov and Bran ...
The entrance to Brasov seems to Milan viale Papigno market when there is a chaos of cows, wagons, non-catalysed cars, people, bags, fruit, poultry, wood, stones, holes ... no traffic lights, no road lines, no signs Can ...!

Fled from Brasov, and we head towards the castle of Bran, the famous castle of Dracula, or rather the place where it is said Prince Vlad stayed for a while. The castle has the typical appearance, defended and modified after: the architectural styles are superimposed, however, leaving a glimpse of the skeleton in its original structure. The interior is beautiful, furnished wood in black, is a series of references to the Queen of Romania, Maria, immortalized in several images of everyday life. The strangeness is the absolute lack of any information concerning the alleged residence of Prince Vlad here: what makes us suspicious, but after all very happy. It will explain why ...
While in the lower part of the castle of Bran mercatume people speaking the most bleak, with masks SCREAM (!?!?) and monstrous elves of the woods around the castle is the story with the "S" capitalized is enriched its role and All the visitor is presented with simplicity and detail. So, who has lived here or not Prince Vlad, the Romanian imports up to a certain point, however important to know who has stayed mum as to Romania, the beautiful young Queen Mary, first and last sovereign of this country then passed in the'30s of the twentieth century, in the hands of militant nationalists.


We like the castle, the towers, the courtyard, the doors will not open and the dark and menacing forest that opens up behind him at night .. here .. being able to sleep should be a business.
In the evening we eat in Brasov, in a luxury restaurant .. so allow prices .. cheers! Eat well, drink well, and visit some 'the city: the Black church, the large market square and the medieval citadel. Piove diminiusce but not the value of the beautiful Transylvanian city, the Romanian city most visited of all.
Last stop is the capital. Bucarest shows every flaw of his sad and troubled past bombed and destroyed during the wars, buried by an earthquake in 1940 and distorted by questionable taste in forty-communist post-war.
So ... which city would have survived to this decay? No, in fact Bucharest you can not just define a great city.
To worsen the situation there is a real gem that you all know: here's to you Mr. Ceasescu. One can not fail to mention him when talking about Romania: this man was living like the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople, had the mania of greatness of Stalin, Mao save as, squandered the money as the South American dictators friends, ect ...
So ... a beautiful character of the story. Romanians are grateful to Timisoara and those who have given their lives to liberate the country from the lunatic visionary.
Emblem of everything: the monumental Palace of Parliament, or Casa del Popolo (!?!?!)
Cement monstrosity built in the late'70s, mostrosuità that led to the complete destruction of one-sixth of the Romanian capital, monstrosity that is still the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon.
Fate un po 'voi ...

My story is not finished and I just have to go with all my strength to make a trip to Romania: let prejudices at home and reading, let this beautiful country and its people. Return richer ...

Mult goods, România.

Andrea