A Few Days in Brasov

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Our Transylvania Roadtrip

If you want to read about our excellent roadtrip, here are our other days

Days 1-2: Bucharest to Brasov

On day one, the drive is really simple as we took the major motorway up to Brasov whilst stopping at beautiful castles, Peles and Pelesor, along the route!

Lodging

In Romania's second largest city and the base of most Transylvania trips, Brasov has an abundance of lodging options from hostels to fancy hotels. Although we easily could have gone with a hotel, we found great rates on AirBnB. Located within 5 minutes of the city center, this AirBnB was fantastic as it provided so much space compared to our previous rooms. The master bedroom was huge and also included a sauna for these cold nights! In addition, the living room was very comfortable and we enjoyed the kitchen perks. The only downside was the bathroom was a cold walk away from the bedroom and parking - although that is a problem throughout Brasov! You can find this listing on Booking.com for slightly cheaper but we did not find it in time!

Food & Drinks

In Brasov, we found one of our favorite restaurants in Romania!

Must Eat: Bistro de l'Arte

While I am sure you cannot go wrong in the city center, one restaurant stands above the rest - at least in our eyes! Even in COVID times, reservations were hard to come by and must needed during popular times. After delaying our lunch after visiting Bran Castle, we thankfully held out for Bistro over touristy shops in Bran. We luckily found our seat and immediately were grateful we waited! Each menu item sounded great and sadly we had to only choose two - since we planned on coming back for dinner! I went for a tasty burger with homemade sauce and the burger melted in my mouth! It tasted like an American burger. Mary Frances chose a warm Romanian bolognese with fresh pasta. We greatly enjoyed our late lunch!

Because our late lunch proved to also be our early dinner, we went to the Bistro for breakfast before heading to our next destination. For this meal, I went with my usual breakfast order and had eggs benedict with a yogurt sauce while Mary Frances had a cheesy omelet. We greatly enjoyed our breakfast as well! We were sad we had to leave Brasov!

Other Top Choices:

Sergiana: For our first meal in Brasov, we went traditional Romanian! While the decor suggests a tourist trap, Sergiana provided quality food - even if I was not use to it! Because of Romania's close ties to Germany, there was schnitzel on the menu and Mary Frances could not resist! She was happy with the HUGE portion size. Meanwhile, I went traditional Romanian and had XXX, which is a minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. While I am not a huge fan of cabbage leaves, XXX had an interesting flavor and taste and wasn't bad.

Urban Grill: For some reason, we really wanted burgers in Brasov. Because the Bistro didn't have any availability, we settled for Urban Grill. We both ordered their speciality burgers and we were satisfied. It was an ordinary burger, which isn't spectacular but also hard to find in Europe!

Nola Coffeeshop: Because this coffee shop was 3 minutes away from our hotel, I went here a few times on my way to city center. With a small space, this boutique coffee shop is perfect for a tasty flat white!

Shake Coffee: While Shake is in town and hard to distinguish between the many other coffee shops, I chose Shake because it had the highest reviews compared to the others. Thankfully, it did not disappoint!

Peles Castle

As we walked through a gorgeous autumn forest, our trip felt like we stumbled upon one of the greatest hidden wonders. Perched on a mountainside and presented as royalty, Peles Castle is immensely impressive especially on a clear autumn day! The (surprisingly) German architecture is gorgeous as the spires piece into the sky. We hit a home run on our first stop in Transylvania and Romania.

Inside the courtyard, we found beautiful hand-painted artwork and we were in love. As we waited in line, we read that this little castle has a proud history. Because Romania has a turbulent history with the Ottomans and deep regional divides, once Romania gained independent status, they imported a German to be their new king. While Romania only was a monarchy from 1881 to 1947, the Romanians are very proud of their royal family!

Glorious Interior

Because we have lived in England for quite some time, we had high expectations for castles! Instead, we were blown away! The interior was simply magnificent. As the self-guided tour ran through the castle, each room had their own theme showcasing its extravagance. While they only ruled for a little bit, the royal family sure spent the money to feel like royalty.

While we weren't technically allowed to take pictures, I could not help myself. This 19th century castle has a lot of character and we enjoyed exploring both the rich history and culture of Romania's royal family. Sadly, I could only imagine what their normal day-to-day castle would have been like as Peles Castle is their summer residence!

Pelesor Castle

Similar to other royal families (cough, cough England), the son couldn't quite leave his parents. Built literally 100 yards away, Pelesor Castle was the future king and queen's summer residence. Built in the 1900s, Pelesor is very modern.... and bland. Compared to the "sister" castle, this castle felt very... boring. All rooms were decorated in the same modern style. While we enjoyed the sleek modern design, we still liked the first castle better.

An Evening in Brasov Old Town

After a terrific first day in Transylvania, we had high hopes for our evening in Brasov! After settling in our awesome AirBnB, we explored the tiny old town by wandering through the tiny alleys and squares. Compared to Bucharest, Brasov Old Town feels authentic and gorgeous. The buildings are extremely colorful and really come to life at night. Sadly, the town was not as busy as it could be because of COVID, but that is also good news for us as we had the city to ourselves.

After a nice evening stroll, we settled down for a terrific meal at Sergiana. We were pleasantly surprised with our Romanian food and ended our night on a high note!

Day Two: Brasov

While other itineraries recommend moving on from Brasov to other destinations, we opted to stay in Brasov in order to see the city whilst seeing more of the sights.

Bran Castle

Within 40 minutes of Brasov lies possibly our favorite Romanian castle - Bran! From scary Count Dracula to impressive royal history, we were very excited! Once we arrived at Bran and found the castle entrance (it is quite hidden from the road), we were one of the very few people here! This was strange especially when all the travel itineraries all highly recommend getting there early to avoid crowds!

The Royal Show

Similar to our experience yesterday at Peles Castle, Bran Castle is all about the Romanian royal dynasty - particularly Marie of Romania! Born in Edinburgh, she was the last queen of Romania and had a huge impact on society and preserving Romanian heritage. Since Marie preserved this beautiful castle, most of the rooms are dedicated to her and the improvements that she made to the castle.

Romanian Myth...or Legend?

Because Bran Castle serves as the backdrop to the famous Count Dracula story, there are a few rooms dedicated to the real life character of Vlad Dracula - the Romanian hero and king in the 1400s. Inspired by his alleged torture techniques and brutal cruelty, the books then took on another life as the legend just grew throughout the known world from Russia to Germany to England. However, other than Bran Castle being strategically important and a royal castle from the 1300s, there is no connection between these legendary characters.

Rather than solely focus on their most famous legend, there are several rooms dedicated to Romanian myths and folklore. Because of the quite turbulent history and constant fighting between Ottomans, Russians, and then individual state fighting, these stories have essentially held the country together. For us, we learned so much about it! Now if only I could remember these folklore stories - but I will say they are very similar to ones I have heard such as werewolves, zombies, and frightening creatures!

Stunning Views

Both inside and outside the castle have stunning views! Once we arrived at the top of the castle, we saw why Bran castle was important to the valley as it provided protection and had an excellent vantage point. The stunning views made for great pictures!

Possibly our favorite part of the castle was the courtyard! Although the courtyard was smaller than other castles, the architecture style is fantastic as the stairs wrap around the courtyard. Both MF and I were loving the history and architecture! 

Ransov Castle

Near Brasov there is another castle worth a visit - Ransov Castle! Perched on top of the hills, Ransov possibly has better views although less of an impressive history. However, in order to reach these views, one has to walk about 15-20 minutes straight uphill... or... take the tram for 5LV. I'll let you guess which one we chose...

Once we arrived at the castle, we discovered it was majorly under reconstruction - everything from the exterior to the interior courtyard. Thus, we were left with the grassy plains and valley views. While our visit wasn't as grand as we hoped, we still had fun exploring castle ruins.

Relaxing in Brasov

After a whirlwind day exploring Bran's castles, we were ready to relax and explore the second largest city in Romania! Because we were exploring for most of the day, we were starving and decided to wait until we returned to Brasov to eat lunch/early dinner and it was a great decision! Eating at the Bistro has been one of our highlights!

After a terrific meal, we explored the cobblestone streets with beautiful, colorful buildings. Unlike Bucharest, the streets are alive with people and activity! More importantly, we had clear views of the "Hollywood"-like Brasov sign and the courtyard!

https://youtu.be/NX37CvQRxN0

Next Time...

Now that you've read this chapter of our Transylvania Roadtrip, click below to continue onwards, or head back to another day!

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A Weekend in Bucharest