Hello lovely peeps, How are you all? I hope you have had many occasions to smile and to count your blessings. I'm still on holiday and I'm enjoying myself no end, so smiles every day.
In my last blog post I was in Hungary (Budapest) From there we had a nine hour train journey into Transsylvania (in Romania) where we stopped in Alba Iulia.
We visited the citadel the next day
and saw a beautiful orthodox church:
We had a wine tasting session inside the citadel (perfect for maturing wine):
Next door to our hotel, called hotel Transylvania, there was an automated flower shop that sold beautiful bouquets:
When we enquired about this, we were told that boys give their girlfriends flowers and husbands their wives. Isn't that nice.
Next day back on the train for five hours to Brasov. The trains are modern and luxurious (we are traveling first class) and we had lunch in the buffet car which served excellent wine too.
The hotel in Brasov was the best we had so far (Called Kromwell). In the afternoon we got picked up by our private mini bus to go into the mountains to a bear hide. Brown bears are many in the mountains but when they are hungry they come into the town. To avoid this, the rangers feed them water melons (a sweet treat) to keep them from wandering into town.
It was a bit like whale watching. No guarantee they will turn up. But we were lucky.
We waited an awful long time and nearly went home, but at the end they came to eat their water melons. What a unique situation. We were in a hide with glass but had to be mouse still and not talk.
Next day, (we're still staying in Brasov) we went to visit the citadel in Rupea:
The view from the top was well worth the climb. The snow topped mountains in the distance are beautiful.
Then we drove to Viscri and visited a fortified church (the population was Saxon, and their faith was Lutheran and I don't quite know why they had to fortify their churches)
Inside the church I loved all that embroidery and of course the old furniture:
Viscri is a UNESCO World heritage site and King Charles has a house there:
This is above the door:
Here is our group having a drink there:
I think I'll leave it at that. More on Tuesday.
There are some funnies at the end as per usual.
Keep smiling,
Lisca
6 comments:
Wow - how amazing to see brown bears in the wild in Europe! Enjoying all your Orient Express route shots...
The embroidery is so pretty in the Viscri church, and who knew Charles had a house there?!
Keren
This sounds like a wonderful journey indeed. King Charles has a house there, odd... Good funnies - enjoy your trip - and thank you for sharing!!!!
Wow, what a fabulous trip Lisca. You are seeing some amazing sights. And those brown bears are huge too. I think even bigger than the bear that visited me. It's a good idea what they are doing, and you so a lot of them too. I hope your weather has improved and you are having more exciting adventures. hugs-Erika
Your trip is really fascinating — so many good things that people don’t know about because we tend to go the predictable places
Fascinating post and beautiful photos. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Hi Lisca, sorry I'm late getting back to you. Hubby has started his school visits again and so I've been trying to clear out stuff from the cabin, it's difficult to let things go even though I know I wont use them again. No wonder you're full of smiles what a great holiday you're having. Pleased you got to see the bears. Enjoy the rest of your holiday. Hugs Angela xXx
Post a Comment