Romania Tour Week 1

We have been touring around Romania for a week now already and have been really enjoying ourselves. After we helped pack up and organize everything after summer camps we took off on a train for Brasov. Brasov is in Transylvania in the Carpathian mountains. It is a medieval town with much of the walls in place and many of the buildings too.

This is the black church, a large cathedral that is the center of town. There is a nice square too where the city hall is.

Another large church in Brasov.

We enjoyed some great food there too, we had Mexican at Bella Musica, a restaurant with great atmosphere in a wine cellar. We found lots of other great food too at the cafes, with the highlights being a cappuccino croissant and a strawberry-rhubarb bar. Around Bucharest nobody has even heard of rhubarb so this was an exciting find!

We continued our tour of the medieval towns in Sighisoara, which has this great clock tower in the center. This is also the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the impaler, the inspiration for the Dracula story.

The streets are lined with colorful houses like this, making it a very fun place to explore.

We also enjoyed great food here at the international cafe, the spinach quiche and blackberry apple pie were awesome. The cafe is run by the Veritas organization which works with people of all ages helping them better their lives. Our friend Jess worked with them here a few years ago.

We made a quick stop in Medias to see the church there.

Then we traveled by bus to Nemsa, which barely shows up on a map. We stayed at a really nice guesthouse where we talked over dinner with the owner about the history of the area. This area was settled by people from Germany in the 1200's and they built churches like the ones in our pictures in all the little towns. Many of them were fortified with large walls to keep out invaders. With all the recent wars involving Germany and then communism most of the Germans have left, especially after communism fell. The villages are so much different now, with the houses being lived in by Roma people now. Being there we could just feel the history and were witnesses to how quickly it can change.

We walked nearly an hour and a half with our backpacks through the mountains to arrive at Biertan, one of the best fortified churches. We asked some people if we could go up the hill through their garden to get a good picture. Then we caught a ride with a German couple back to Sighisoara because there was no public transportation at all.

We then went on to Sibiu, the European Cultural Capital of 2007. There is another huge cathedral there and we walked all the way up to the top of the bell/clock tower to see the city. We also went to an art museum but we didn't have much time because we were feeling sick earlier that day so we were resting.

We then went on to Hunedoara to see the spectacular Castle Corvinilor. This castle was built by one of the kings of Transylvania in the 14oo's and was added onto and modified by many others.

The dining hall was the neatest area, looking just like what you'd think of from a movie.

We're having a great time so far, and we have one more week to go. We are continuing to pray that God takes care of us and leads us to the right places, which he has done so far. This is our first vacation backpacking in Europe and also the first one where nothing is really planned out. So far everything has worked out just right though and we are having a lot of fun!