Thursday, 12 May, 2016 – Budapest

Today is going to be a very big day. Our friends from previous tours, Jan and Hugh, have organised a two day tour of Budapest with a guide, Edith, who they had used last year. Julie gets up early for a spa while I am still dozing. We have a few food highlights but have breakfast any way after she comes back from the spa.

It is a specially busy morning for Julie as after breakfast she has a Thai massage. Then back to the room to get ready for today’s tour. At 11:30, we meet our tour guide, Edith, in the lobby. We hop into her dirver’s van and make the trek into the city to pick up Jan and Hugh. Traffic is ordinary and it takes over 30 minutes. Edith points out lot of buildings and points of interest and tells us a lot of details. Clearly she knows her stuff.

When we get to the Continental, it is good to catch up with Jan and Hugh again, this is the third tour we have done with them albeit we do have irregular Skype video talks with them. Our first stop on the tour is a Strudel tasting.

There was a menu page of standard strudels but all were sweet except the one savoury was cabbage. So we select ones on an earlier page, probably larger serves.

Julie goes to the toilet and takes a couple of pictures of the exotic sink work.

We leave the Strudel house, in operation for 10 years and highly popular. We drive to and are dropped off at the Jewish Quarter. We do not go into the complex but take a photo from outside.

Then it is time for Lunch, it will be my third meal in 4 hours.

The Goose was overcooked and hence a bit tough but the flavour was nice. After that sumptous feast, should I say those 3 sumptuous feasts, it is time to go for a wine tasting. It is a fair drive in ordinary traffic to a suburb called Budafok. When we get to the winery, we are 30 minutes early so drive down the road a km or so and go to an impressive restaurant which is owned by the same people as the winery. We are given a great tour by a young lady Nicky. This place is massive, two rooms that hold 150 each plus other seats.

We thank our hostess and drive back to the winery.

We are met by the proprietor who has a gown like he is a priest. He gives us all similar gowns. We are given a tour of the winery albeit much of it is set up as a winery but is not currently being used. There are four tasting stops along the way, very generous with five wines available to taste.

There are number of the large barrels like the restaurant with various decorations.

I don’t have a photo of the last stop but you get the idea. We return our robes to our guide and thank him profusely for the great tour / tasting.

We jump into the van for the return trip. The traffic is absolutely horrendous and takes us well over an hour to get into the city. Edith thinks there must have been something wrong that had happened. We drop off Jan and Hugh at their Hotel and then take the dirve to ours. The traffic is not as bad as when we were driving into the city. We finally reach our Hotel around 8:00 PM, say goodnight to Edith and our driver and pack it in for the night.

Monday, 9 May 2016 – Brasov to Bran to Bucharest

Today we are leaving Transylvania to return to Bucharest. But first we drive to Bran to visit Draculas càstle.

At the entrance to the castle grounds is a flea market with lots of stalls of various kinds.

There was a stall that had lots of smoked meats including smoked fat, a favourite of Alexandra, who offered tastes but I declined, silly me. The Castle does not open until after Noon so we go across the street for a coffee in the Cinema. It was OK.

We go back to the Castle entrance but I had already decided that I would not go in after hearing stories of lots of stairs. Instead I went back to the car, ostensibly for a nap while the girls go into the Castle. The following pictures are from Julie.

We start our drive back to Bucharest. It is 2 plus hours and we are getting a bit hungry. We stop at a “truck stop”, no trucks in site, and grab something to eat. We continue on and eventually reach the same Hotel we stayed in the first part of Romania, although a different room. Alexandra drives off to freshen up.

It is our last night in Romania so Alexandra has selected a special restaurant. She picks us up from the Hotel and it it a relatively short drive there.

I think we are the only customers inside. The menu is interesting making it difficult to make a selection. The Waiter suggests a start of a few selected dips.

The photo of my dish did not turn out. It was a Romanian traditional dish of minced meats in kebab form. I will try to look it up. I found it, Mititei. Wikipedia has a good desription and photo of it, check it out. I liked it. It was served with fries cooked in goose lard, they were soggy and not my style.

We are dropped off at the Hotel and retire for the evening, our last night in Romania.

Sunday, 8 May, 2016 – Brasov and surrounds

Originally it was planned that today we would go to Sighisoura which is a medieval citadel, one of the best preserved in Europe. However, we learned from the Hotel staff that there was to be a once a year festival in Brasov today so we decide we will do that instead. Alexandra had not seen this festival before.

The festival primarily involved men and boys in traditional outfits riding horses that were also highly decorated. They would ride around the square where we were located and through the streets etc, before a formal parade started at 11:00, we got there about 10:00.

The following are horse pictures from Julie:

Guys, my photos of horses did not work out well. Trust me, more are coming from Alexandra.

After the parade starts, it is not possible to get out of town until the parade ends and then all of the horses drift back up to the square and beyond. Then when we can finally get going, the traffic is dense and slow.

We take the long drive back and I do basic blogging etc. while Julie goes out prancing and takes a bunch more photos of other aspects of the festival.

Once Julie returns it is early to bed.

As mentioned above, more Horses are coming to this Post.