Brasov

We hit Brasov the other day, the main gateway to a lot of the sights in this part of the mountains and a beautiful town in its own right as well. We searched around for a decent place to stay and ended up in a guesthouse recommended by the trusty old guidebook. It was tucked away in a courtyard off a pretty street in the old town. We just had to walk a few streets over and we were in the old town square, perfect.
It just so happened that our arrival in Brasov coincided with a Tuborg Gold beer festival. Totally unexpected but very handy. A whole outdoor area was set up with heaps of beer tents, BBQs and a stage. We had a lot of fun sampling the cheap beer, queuing up for mici (meatball things served with mustard and bread) and getting down to awful DJs and a so-so Romanian rock band which was very popular. After seeing a big street dance party in Yalta and now this we have concluded that these guys know how to party over here, don't know what the noise pollution rules are though... You could hear the partying across town.
The next day Adam was healthy as usual and Eva was trashy as. How unfair!! As a hangover cure we took the cable car to the top of the mountain overlooking the city. The ride to the top was a bit on the queasy side but the fresh (freezing) breeze at the top was very restorative. It was very exciting getting to walk up to the huge BRASOV sign which is on the side of the mountain Hollywood style and which we had seen hanging over our heads for the last couple of days. Getting to see an aerial view of the old town was wonderful as well, with its huge defensive walls, ancient buildings and Gigantic church.
We ended up staying four nights in Brasov without seeming to do anything other than a bit of lazy sightseeing. It was just one of those places where you can spend a lot of time just soaking up the feeling of an old town and chilling out. Perhaps we stayed there so long because we knew our next stop was to the mountains where we were actually going to be doing some exercise...
One little adventure we had was trying to get out to a fortified church just out of town. We grabbed a couple of train tickets but when we pulled up at the 'station' we didn't quite know what to think. There was a house and a road and we had to jump down from the train about 1.5 m. We managed to navigate our way to the church only to find that it was closed which was pretty disappointing as from the outside it looked pretty cool. Mind you by the time we got back to Brasov (on our first minibus since 'the crash') we were pretty happy just to have gotten out to yet another tiny town for a look around what life is like over here.
Photos: Brasov main square (Note sign on hill)