For the end-of-Ramadan holiday Seker Bayram, schools in Turkey have a 4-day weekend. We flew to Romania with our friends Brendan, Tracey and Amber from the Koc School to explore Transylvania and discover a new country. We also had some hope of skiing. We flew from Istanbul right as the last iftar (breaking of the fast) of Ramadan was beginning. We landed an hour later in a very different land, the land of Dracula and Nadia Comaneci, a country which only 13 years ago overthrough their communist dictator.

Brasov, Transylvania

We spent most of our long weekend in the medieval city of Brasov, a three-hour train ride north of Bucharest, just over the Carpathian Mountains. The old city was built by the German Saxons who controlled much of the the region for many centuries starting in the 13th. They fortified the city in the fifteenth century under the threat, interestingly enough, of the expanding Ottoman Turks. Most of the fortifications remain, including the walls on 3 of 4 sides, an old gate, a citadel on a hill, and numerous towers and bastions along the walls. We spent a whole morning walking around the perimeter of the walls. Snow had fallen overnight and continued to fall lightly; the ancient walled town with snow on the roofs was beautiful!

This old drawing shows the medieval walled city, much of which is visible today.	Catherine's Gate, a main entrance to the city in medieval times. The Romanian-speaking peasants living outside had to pay a toll here to enter the Saxon city.
A section of the old crumbling wall. To the right, a cold stream runs by the city wall, with a bastion built over it. A carved wooden gate, allowing entrance into one of the fortified bastions.

Dominating the skyline of the old city for the last 600 years or so is the Black Church, built between 1385 and 1477. It is a huge gothic cathedral, built Catholic. It later became Lutheran (the town was still German Saxon) in the Reformation. The inside has huge, white, soaring space, a 4000-pipe organ, and lots of light. The most interesting thing inside were the hundreds of Turkish carpets, most of which were Islamic prayer rugs. They were beautiful, and there was a display showing the areas of Turkey where they originated. They got to Brasov because it was on the main trade routes from the Ottoman empire! It was so interesting to see Islamic prayer rugs hanging proudly in a Lutheran church!

The Black Church towers above the other buildings, but Mount Timpa, served by a cable car, rises right above the edge of the old town.

Brasov's main square, the Council Square, is all pedestrian and is dominated by the Council House and a huge 60-foot Christmas tree, bright and beautiful at night. The square is lined with old shopfronts. We had three of our meals at a wonderful restaurant on the square, Gustari, which served hearty and unique Romanian cuisine: for example: cabbage stuffed with roasted pork, served with polenta. The exchange rate made each of our feasts for 5 people cost about $25!

The Council Square, Brasov	Romanians in the Council Square. Fur hats are everywhere in this cold, wet country.
The Council House and the Christmas Tree in the center of the square.	The Strada Republicii. You can see our hotel on the left, and the top of the Black Church in the distance.

Opening into the square is the wonderful pedestrian street the Strada Republicii. There were ski shops, cafes, and an old hotel, the Coroana, where we stayed. The street was decorated with Christmas lights, and was a pleasant stroll any time of day or night. In fact, our first day in Brasov was the holiday of Saint Nicolas, the day that Romanians traditionally put shoes out for gifts from Saint Nick, and also start putting out decorations for Christmas. We saw more and more decorations go up through our visit. Romanian Christmas carols were playing in every cafe, and it was nice to be in a Christian country during the holiday season.

We rode a cable car up Mount Timpa, which sits right next to the old city.

Tracey, Amber and Evie at the top of the mountain. The snow was frozen on the trees and it was beautiful. We took a nice walk in the woods.

The view of the Brasov town square from Mount Timpa. See the huge Christmas tree in front of the Council House?

Bran Castle

Probably the biggest tourist attraction in Romania is Bran Castle. It is referred to as Dracula's Castle for the tourists, but Dracula never actually lived here. However, this castle felt like the perfect home for a vampire count: towers, ramparts and lots of nooks-and-crannys, perched on a rocky bluff, with black-forest-covered mountains all around. It was so fun to climb the spiral staircases, peek out of the towers, and imagine torch-carrying riders entering the courtyard. The whole area was blanketed in fog, adding to the effect.

Dracula never lived in Bran Castle, but it sure feels like he could have! The foggy day in Transylvania, which obscured the surrounding hills and forests of black trees, set the castle perfectly.

Our tour book, the Rough Guide, told us that much of the mythology of Dracula and Transylvania actually was fictionally brought together by Brit Bram Stoker in his 1897 novel. Vampires do feature in native folklore of this region, but the historical figure of Dracula, a ruthless prince called Vlad Tepes who lived from about 1431-76, was not associated with vampirism until Stoker's book. Instead Vlad was terrifying in a different way: he was known as "Vlad the Impaler" for killing thousands of people by hammering stakes through them and raising them aloft to die, especially during his wars with the Ottoman Turks.

An Interesting Country, with aTumultuous History

While in Romania, we realized how little we knew about the history of this part of the world. We read and pieced together that the lands now included in Romania have had tumultuous history, controlled by different invaders and empires, including the Romans, the Hungarians, the Hapsburgs, the Saxons, the Ottomans, and others. The Romanian people claim some connection to the Romans, and their language is a romance language, very similar to French and sounding to us alot like Italian. (This made getting around fun and manageable -- together with the fact that everyone spoke English, much more than Turkey).

Transylvania only became a part of Romania after WWI. During WWII, Romania started on the German side, but switched midway and became under increasing influence of Red Army and communism. In 1969 Nicolae Ceaucescu established undisputed power, and led Romania as an independent state in the Eastern bloc. The Ceaucescu era had a dictatorial communist government with secret police and human rights abuses, terrible economic woes and low standards of living.

The dramatic revolution in December 1989, only 13 years ago, had riots in the Piata Revolutiei in Bucharest (which we visited) and the execution of the Ceaucescus. The new leader, Ilieascu, was one of Caeucesu's party and not altogether so different, but the country has made some progress towards westernization and liberalization, freely electing a new progressive government in 1996. Romania was just approved for NATO membership, and, like Turkey, is working hard to eventually join the EU. It's not nearly as modernized as Turkey, and is still a very poor country.

We saw some of the evidence of the Communist history: endless concrete block apartments, a general run-down-ness, and state-run industries. However, we found a surprising amount of very beautiful architecture, most of it pre-communist, surviving all over the country. Some examples below:

House in Bran village

Houses in Bran village

House just outside Brasov's Catherine's Gate

Brasov courthouse building at night

Back to Bucharest

The trainride back to Bucharest was scenic, with newly-fallen snow making the scenery much more picturesque than the foggy rain in which we arrived. The snow was late this year, and the skiing hadn't started yet. We were hoping to ski, but no luck. The locals wondered about global warming. We saw some beautiful mountains which made us want to return, either in the summer to hike or in the winter to ski. Who knows when that will be!

Some snowy scenery from the train.

The mountains we saw from the train made us want to come back for skiing.

We got a few nice views of the Carpathians on the way back to Bucharest.

Bucharest struck us as a once-beautiful city which had seen better days. Bucharest was laid out with much French influence, with wide boulevards and pretty European architecture. It was once known as the Paris of the East. It has seen hard times since then, and Ceaucescu didn't help: he tore out about a fourth of the old city to build a huge Centru Civic with concrete apartments and the enormous Palace of the People, the third largest building in the world. We saw a mixture in Bucharest: communist concrete, turn-of-the-century european charm, and evidence of new modernization.

The enourmous Palace of the People in Bucharest, built by Ceaucescu in the 80s to embody the state's authority and that of Ceaucescu himself.

Living in Muslim Turkey, where pork is almost non-existent, Romania was quite a contrast, with bacon, ham, and even McPork, everywhere!

Brendan trying on the ubiquitous Romanian fur hat.