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ROMANIA
2010 |
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| I woke up from my first night in Brasov, Romania feeling
extremely weak and with a strange dizziness in my head. It was almost like I
had a terrible hangover and just gotten back from the blood donors at the same
time! At first I thought it might have been because I hadn’t fully
recovered from the previous nights’ arduous train journey from Belgrade.
However, I looked in the mirror that morning and noticed two strange
mosquito-bite sized marks on my neck, my eyes were both very red, and most
strangely of all - my two frontal canine teeth seemed to have expanded
downwards by a millimeter. As the day wore on, other eerie symptoms began to
arise. I found myself become increasingly lethargic from the sunlight - quite
bizarre for someone who has lived most of his life in the Middle East! I also
found myself shying away from visiting any of Romania’s many distinctive
medieval cathedrals for some strange reason, preferring to linger around the
cemeteries instead and another strange occurrence happened at the restaurant
that night. Although I normally love my meat well done, I had this sudden
craving for an ultra-rare steak that night, had red wine as opposed to my usual
white and couldn’t go anywhere near the complimentary garlic bread –
usually one of my favorite appetizers. |
I went back to the hotel that night feeling increasingly
restless. For some reason I wanted to go back to that restaurant and get
another blood-filled rare steak. I couldn’t sleep that night and as the
craving got stronger, I noticed my canine teeth had grown into two full sized
wolf-like fangs dangling parallel to each other like a pair of icicle spikes. I
immediately got up, turned the light on and went to the mirror and to my horror
I saw….. no reflection! It was at this point that I decided to seek
medical help. I raced out of my room and downstairs to the lobby where I saw
the receptionist but just as I opened my mouth ask for directions to the
hospital, she screamed… “Ahhhhh….. DRACULA!!!!!” And at
that moment, she picked up a wooden stake she had stored under the reception
desk and drove it painfully, straight into my heart!
The next thing I
knew there was a flash of white light, I heard a train whistle and then heard a
voice say, “excuse me sir… wake up…. this is Brasov”….
I opened my eyes and realized I was still on the train and we had just reached
Brasov, Transylvania’s transportation hub and one of Romania’s most
visited cities. It had all just been a bad dream on the night train over from
Belgrade and had ironically come to its climax just as we’d choo-choo-ed
to my preferred stop. With its’ plethora of sites, compact medieval heart,
abundant baroque architecture, cobblestone alleyways and excellent lookout
points from the surrounding Carpathian Mountains – Brasov is an excellent
entry point for travellers in Romania. However, the city’s beauty is
unfortunately overshadowed by the region’s main draw, the nearby Bran
Castle. The well preserved fairytale-structured fortified chateau rose to
touristic prominence as it bore an uncanny resemblance to the lair of the
vampire guru in Brahm Strokes’ 1892 landmark novel Dracula.
Oddly
enough, the historical connection between Bran Castle and vampires is a bit of
a historical innacuracy. The real son of Count Dracul, Vlad Tepes (aka,
“Draculea” due to the patriarchal-naming system that was in place at
the time) – never actually permanently bore residence in Bran for any
considerable period of time. In fact Tepes was the voivode of
Transylvania’s then sovereign neighboring kingdom Wallachia. He may have
spent some time in the castle, as is acknowledged inside the castle’s
museum as he fended off the region from countless Ottoman attacks; however, the
most noteworthy resident celebrated by the castle’s museum is in fact
Queen Mary of Edinburgh. No need to mention that to the hordes of stall and
shopkeepers outside the castle’s gates selling pretty much every kind of
Dracula merchandise you can possibly imagine. I made due with a T-shirt and
Dracula beer mug before heading off to nearby Râs,nov and its equally
impressive hilltop castle.
Right: Portrait of Vlad Tepes |
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Notorious Vlad Tepes ruled Wallachia in the 15th century and
got his nickname “Vlad the Impaler” from his rather peculiar torture
methods of captured soldiers during his kingdoms’ continuous strife with
the Ottoman Empire in which his victims were pierced with metal-rod stakes
intricately placed through vertically through their bodies leaving all vital
organs unharmed. This meant victims suffered days of excruciating pain before
eventually bleeding to death. Despite this cruelty, Tepes was not the only one
who did this during his time and he is now celebrated as something of a hero
throughout Romania due to the heroic resistance he put up against the Ottoman
invaders. A visit to Tepes’ historic birthplace Sighisoara is an absolute
must. The beautifully preserved medieval citadel center is certainly a
picturesque place and one of Romania’s highlights.
The last stop
on my Eastern European adventure was Romania’s capital city Bucharest.
Although crowded, crazy and chaotic and not as quaint as its Hungarian
counterpart Budapest – Bucharest still has its own unique charm. The
city’s most monumental structure is the gargantuan Palace of the
Parliament, the world’s most heaviest building and largest of its kind.
Although locals don’t always speak favorably of it due to it being a
leftover relic of Romania’s former communist repressor Nicolae Ceaus,escu,
it is most certainly an essential most tourists itineraries. Bucharest is also
home to many of Romania’s finest museum – amongst these being the
Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which pays homage to Romania’s ample Gypsy
culture. Like Belgrade, perhaps Bucharest’s finest quality however is its
vibrant nightlife which I was able to sample in the central Lipscani district
thanks to its proximity to the nearby university before heading back to
Budapest to catch my flight back to Qatar.
Left: Bran Castle |
The view from the Brasov sign |
The Black Church |
Above: The Bella Musica Restaurant |
Above & Below: Around Brasov |
The house where Vlad Tepes was born, now a
restaurant |
Inside the Casa Vlad Dracul Restaurant |
Above: Dacia - Romania's trademark car |
Below: inside the Sighisoara Clock
Tower |
Above: The view from Sighisoara clock
tower |
Below: The Casa Vlad Dracul Restaurant,
Sighisoara |
Above: Sighisoara market... Right: Roma woman in
Sighisoara |
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Below: Palace of the Parliament,
Bucharest |
Above: Around Bucharest |
Above: This man caused quite a commotion,
threatening to kill himself in Bucharest |
Below: Bucharest |
Above: around Bucharest |
Below: The Count Dracula Club Restaurant, where
the meat is always rare and the wine red. |
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