3 Castle Tour

Today, I was supposed to go on a tour with two other people but they canceled at the last minute. That was fine since the car was a bit smaller than a Corolla so it would have been crowded. That meant, though, that I had to pay the two person minimum price, about $100 for an 8 hour tour so not too bad. Although I had to pay admission at the castles, I get the senior rate which is always half price--so instead of $7, I paid about $3.50. A bargain.  My guide was Vlad, a young man in his 30s who graduated with a banking degree, worked in the industry for 5 years until the economy took his job and then went into tourism. His English is excellent and he works for several different companies. Tomorrow, he is leading a 3 day tour of 170 people on 3 buses. If I had it to do over, I probably would take one of the longer tours since these Romanian villages are so charming.

We went to Peles (that's s with a squiggly at the bottom) Palace which was the summer home of the first  king of "modern" Romania, Carol I. I have never seen anything like it--opulent is too mild a word. It was built from about 1880-1914; it has 160 rooms, including 30 bathrooms. Every prominent European architect and interior designer was employed to furnish this place--there's a Venetian room, Florentine room, the dining room is German, etc. The dining room table seats 36 people and the food magically appears in the middle of the table next to the candelabra through a pulley system from the kitchen below. It had electricity from the river close by, a central heating and air conditioning system, and even a central vacuum system that was installed in 1901 when it was invented--it's still in use today. The armory room was especially impressive, with knives, guns, armor from all over the world. I took the English speaking tour and there were probably two other people who have English as their first language. All the Asians and Turks were in my group.

Then we went to Vlad castle which is ancient. Not much original furnishings remain but the architecture is interesting. Lots of information about Dracula that doesn't relate at all to Vlad the Impaler, except maybe they both were very mean. My guide said mostly Vlad impaled bad people so even he is not as bad as you might think.

 Finally, we went to a Citadel or Fortress which is not really a castle. People lived in the village below but all had homes in this self-contained fortress. When invaders attacked, everyone ran up the mountain to the fortress. Personally, I would have been invaded; I could barely make it up this mountain and that was after a wagon took us almost to the top. Also, it was the hottest time of day when we were there and a million screaming school children who were being forced to learn about their heritage, even though they live about 3 hours away. Once 12 soldiers defended the fortress for a week until they ran out of water and had to surrender. After that, they dug a well--down about 160 meters. There was also a secret passageway from the church in the village, through the mountain, up to the fortress. It was destroyed by an earthquake. They also have the highest bungee jump in the world in this area but I didn't look for it. Skiing is popular in this area in the winter--still a little snow on the mountains today.

My guide told me he had a Canadian couple last week who came to Romania with a suitcase full of food because they read that Romania is poor, the people are poor, you can't buy food or anything else. Vlad said "Maybe they read a magazine from 1980 when that was true." At any rate, they ended up giving most of the food to the homeless.  Vlad, like all Romanians, hates the gypsies. He said Romania is fighting with France because the French give each gypsy a free flight to Bucharest and 300 euros if they promise to "go and never come back."  The gypsies go to Bucharest, spend the money, and gradually make their way back to France where they say they can make 300 Euros a day panhandling. And, of course, Vlad resents the fact that the gypsies are on public assistance which is funded by taxpayers--the more children they have, the more money they get.

Vlad recommended a restaurant for me. He told me it has traditional food and at the beginning, they bring everyone a special Romanian dish. The special dish was what we'd call cracklings. Tastier than Pork Rinds. I ordered a porkchop with applesauce. The applesauce was pieces of apples drowning in a sour cream sauce. The Romanians put sour cream on everything--it's always served with soup. Frankly, it's a good idea, in my book. I was amused by 5 businessmen sitting at the table next to mine--4 Germans and a Romanian so their common language was English. 

Tomorrow I'm off to Bratislava. I decided to spring for an airport transfer instead of taking a taxi to the train station, a train to Bucharest, a taxi to the airport, a plane to Vienna, a bus to Bratislava, a taxi to my hotel. Now I'll just have to do the last part...starting with that plane ride.