Transylvania

We managed to forget to put trains and kilometres on last weeks blog, so there is a catch up at the bottom of this one.

Monday, we spend wandering around Oradea again, visiting the Black Eagle arcade, the St Nicholas cathedral, St Laszlo church and a walk along the river.

We have enjoyed our time in Oradea, a nice town, lovely buildings and architecture. You can tell money has been invested in the area, and there is still work ongoing.

Tuesday, we checked out of our AirBnB, had brunch in Victoria’s cafe on the other side of the street, then heading back to the train station. A 2 1/2 hr train journey to Cluj-Napoca, then a short walk to an AirBnB. At check in we actually met a real person, all our previous AirBnB’s have had self check in, with keys in lock boxes or codes provided for electronic locks.

Once checked in we walked into town, about 20mins for dinner and drinks.

Wednesday morning we got a Bolt to the Botanical Gardens, a large area with lots of different sections of garden and green houses. Quite busy with school groups of lots of different age groups wandering round. We strolled back through town via the National Opera House, a couple more churches, Cluj appears to have a church for all denominations.

Thursday, was a day spent mainly on the train to Brasov, in the heart of Transylvania, nearly a 7 hr journey, slowly through lovely countryside.

Friday, we went to Bran Castle, the home of “Vlad the impaler” and his father nicknamed “Dracula”, and it is said to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel. The castle is not that big, but the route through the castle is well organised and worth the £10(ish) entrance fee.

We got a Bolt to and from the Castle, not the cheapest option, but with three of us it was not bad. However Bolt obviously has “dynamic” pricing as, initially, it tried to charge us twice the amount for the return journey, but that was because of supply and demand, there was only one car in Bran. As it was a chilly day we went to find some warming soup for lunch, Rog watched the app and waited for other cars to arrive in the area and the return price halved, back to the original price! Quickly Rog pressed the buttons to book our ride, we paid our lunch bill and dashed outside!

Saturday, unbeknownst to us prior to our arrival in Brasov, there are mountain races over the weekend. Today was the Mountain Ultra Marathon (70 Kms), the Marathon (42 Kms) and the half marathon (21 Kms). The course for all of them started up the mountain straight out of the main city square. A tough course, the winner of the marathon finished in 3hrs 51mins.

We walked around the old town via the Black Church and St Catherine’s gate.

For dinner Nic booked a table at “Soul” a very nice restaurant, the food and wine were excellent! Back to the flat in time to watch a few of the Eurovision songs before falling into bed (we are 2 hours ahead!)

Sunday, we walked up the mountain, a zigzagging path, winding its way up and crossing under the cable car. Worth the climb for the view over the city.

Week ended – 7 May

4 Trains

711 Kms

Week ended – 14 May

2 Trains

480 Kms

Total so far

39 Trains

7,826 Kms