I want to suck your blood!

Brasov is a wonderful medieval city with the old city still ringed with fortress walls and two towers overlooking the central square. Dwarfing everything is the magnificent Black Church. When in Transylvania one must visit the castle of Dracula (although the real Vlad Tepes apparently only visited once). We felt real touristy going to the castle but we did take public transport so that made us feel much more intrepid. The castle is about 20km from Brasov in a little town called Bran. Despite what a very nobbish American in Turkey told us, the castle is very pretty built onto a huge rock with a little wishing well in the middle. Beneath the castle was the expected tourist souveneir stores. We were totally psyched up to get some really corny stuff, but unfortunately all we could find was a snow globe and some magnets.... where was the Dracula bottle opener?

Before leaving Brasov we took a cable car to the hill above town, that has a huge 'Hollywood' style Brasov sign. We had a fun chat with an elderly Romanian man who was very keen to practice his English. After escaping from his clutches we boarded a train to Sibiu, another lovely Transylvanian Saxon town. We had a lovely train trip sharing a cabin with three friendly Romanian women, translation provided by the chatty Cornelia (Hi Cornelia!).

Once in Sibiu we were delighted to discover that it was the last night of the Sibiu Jazz Festival. We settled down into a cafe with beers and listed to music (Brazillian jazz music style!) After a day of sightseeing we headed to Sighisoara the birthplace of Dracula!

We discovered the downside (which has now become the norm) of Romanian trains, they tend to run really late! It can be really frustrating when you don't know what the announcements being made over the loudspeaker are saying. Some friendly people however will tell us that the train is only delayed by one hour. Excellent!

We trudged into Sighisoara pretty late and then went straight to the house that Dracula (aka Vlad Tepes) grew up in (can you see a trend here). Bianca had both of the Dracula specials on the menu. The tomato soup was excellent, but we are still not sure what the main course was, maybe some kind of meat mounted on bread? The next day we had breakfast with a budding author at our bed and breakfast and took in the sights in Sighisoara including the history museum, a museum of medieval arms and armour and climbed to a church perched on a hill above town and the German cemetary cascading behind it.

We took a (delayed) train to the student city of Cluj-Napoca and spent a fun day there checking out the sights. We are now in Timisoara, birthplace of the Romanian 1989 revolution. We are a bit run down so have just had a day and a half of pretty much nothing recuperating. Have just visited one church and a museum full of dioramas and stuffed animals. We have found that Romanian museums are quite eccentric, firstly they like to stuff them full of staff, who then follow you around their assigned rooms (sometimes being helpful by turning on lights but mostly just watching you like you are going to steal the massive ancient vase you are looking at). Don't try looking at whatever you want, there is a set path and you must stick to it! Most hilariously this occurred at the open air museum in Cluj where we weren't allowed to look at about 10 reconstructured village houses as they weren't on the path! Exception to this was the delightful guide at the pharmacy museum in Cluj, who took us round the small museum with great delight - also practicing and checking his pronunciation of English.

Trying to find lunch today was an interesting experience. Romania has many many cafes which only serve coffee, alcohol and ice-cream. We went to one cafe and asked if they did food, to which the waitress said they have sandwiches. After having already tried 3 cafes we were cool with sandwiches, however the menu only had one option! Ham and salami. Despite the growling stomaches we moved on and just picked up some pastries and sat in the park :-)