A Castle Pretty Enough to Go on a Beer Label!

what every vampire hunter needs, wooden sword and shield.

Today from Brasov we took a train to Sinaia to see the local castle most recommended by Helena, the hostess in our hostel, Kismet Dao.  What was supposed to be a twenty-minute walk from the train station in Sinaia to the castle, called Peles, turned into a couple hours trek uphill through a lovely town when we were too stubborn to stop at the tourist info booth in town and ask for a map.

a lovely portrait taken by a passing tourist

When we finally found the castle, it was very pretty, but we were pretty tired and too disenchanted to do the 45-minute tour of the rooms, so we took some pictures around the castle grounds and then headed back through Sinaia (via the designated twenty-minute tourist pathway, stopping for souvenirs along the way) and back to the train station so we could get back to Brasov and reserve the next leg of our journey, an overnight train to Budapest. 

We are very lucky because there were no more first-class sleeper berths available except for one super-extra-first-class, which cost 120 euros to reserve and will have a WC and a shower in our berth! We are very excited about experiencing all of what 120 euros gets you (above and beyond what we already paid for our Eurail pass) on an overnight train from Brasov to Budapest.

mmm, cement grapes...

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped in at a little shop to buy a pair of hiking trousers for Vince since his ones from Carrefour broke (though they did survive our Nepal trip so not bad for a pair of ten dollar trousers) and we ended up having a long chat with the owner of the shop, Louis.  He told us a lot about the history of Romania and of Brasov in particular, and about the local people and culture, and some of the differences between Transylvania and Northern Romania.

Now we are on our way to our next country, so stay tuned for tales of being hungry in Hungary!