Roooomania!

Zac's parents, sister, Heidi, her hubby, Doug, and their little guy, Preston, came to visit at the beginning of October. It was a quick trip, and we headed up to Romania to do the whole Transylvania thing again. Fall is the perfect time for that. The changing leaves, the corn fields, the misty coolness... (well our first two days were lovely, clear weather, and the last two were lovely, misty weather... just perfectly Halloween-y!)

First stop: Bran Castle.

(For more pics of almost the same stuff, but knockin' almost exactly two years off all of us, see this post.)

Our hotel had a great view of the castle, from these cute little balconies.

Bran liked seeing his name all over the place. Makes a cool dude feel even cooler.

That evening we had probably the best doners/gyros ever. They were sooooo delicious. I think the addition of pickled beets pushed 'em over the edge into super awesomeness. There were lots of dogs around and they really liked the doners, too.

The next morning we headed up to the castle.

Bran's favorite display.

Poppie channeling his inner dracula. Maeve was not too worried.

I love this one. Strong little dude, that Preston.

Just like the last time we were there, Z and the kids, and Doug and Presto, and Grandma Buttons headed up the hill behind the castle. Last time, I was pregnant with Maeve, and had no desire to go up there. Also, I think Z just kinda left me. Hmmm... Anyway, this time, I DID want to go, but alas, Maeve had other plans. Isn't it such a beautiful view from up there?

This is what M and I were up to. She was tired and needed to nurse, but ya can't even tell can you? If she's NOT tired and needs to nurse, she has little (which really means "negative") concern for discretion.

Afterwards we grabbed some doners again, and also these little sausages and braided cheese for lunch. Yummmm.... Then it was off to Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the "original" dracula, who is really quite different. Terrible in his own way, though.

He was born in that yellow building on the right, in front of the clock tower.

I liked these little guys up in the clock tower. You can see "Sunday" and "Monday" looking at you, so it must have been Saturday facing out... Yep, would've been Saturday.

We went to the somewhat creepy graveyard there. It was even creepier because there were little piles of leaves burning, so there was smoke drifting between the tombstones.... Also, there were chestnuts in the piles of burning leaves, and they were exploding now and then, so that added to the somewhat spooky atmosphere. Bran had been fixated on getting a crossbow when we went to Romania, and whaddaya know? He found one! He and Nuala and Preston were hunting zombies...

The great thing (one of them) about traveling with other people: you get more pics of the whole family!

Maevesters in the graveyard. She's actually grinning it up for some people passing by, our oh-so-friendly little one...

Then we headed to the Saxon lands, to the town of Biertan. This was a pretty intense lock on a room in the cathedral... wonder what they kept in there...

Nuala started this race when Bran wasn't ready, and thus began a long saga of Bran refusing to move from the end of this corridor, in silent/not-so-silent protest of the unfairness of life.

Grandmas make Maeve happy.

Bran got over the unfairness thing and emerged just in time to climb the walls of the fortified cathedral for a while.

As we drove from Biertan to Sibiu, we stopped at another castle. This one was pretty neat to walk around in.

The kids were especially thrilled because the guy manning the entrance apparently lives there, and he had loads of rabbits and chickens running all over the place. Maeve pretty much spent the entire time chasing the rabbits, yelling "bunny wabbit!" Nuala was ultra-pleased to have actually gotten close enough to pet one. She's quick and sneaky.

Sibiu was a neat city. It had a German feel to it, probably because it was founded by German settlers and was a pretty important ethnic German city. I can't remember why we stopped there, but I'm glad we did. I think it was mostly just on our way to somewhere else, but the streets were cute, the town square was nice, the pastries were DEEElicious, and the food... oh, the food was divine.

We went to a little underground restaurant, which unfortunately did not have a "no smoking" rule. Ugh. We sacrificed all the children's tiny lungs, though, for the short time we were there. It was really late. The food was sooooo good. And the restaurant was really cool, except for the smoking -- gag!

The next day it was on to Vlad the Impaler's REAL castle in Poenari. Bran castle is always touted as "Dracula's castle," but Vlad never lived there. He might have stayed there when he passed through the area, but no one knows 100% for sure. I did read that his grandfather, Mircea the Old (great nickname), lived there for a short time. Anyway, look at the ruins of Vlad's place, perched up to the left above tough-looking Z, mists swirling about it...

It's about 1480 steps to the top, which is why we didn't go up to it last time, being pregnant with Maeve and all. And the twins were asleep. I remember it well. This time, Poppie watched Maeve and Preston, and the rest of us got to go! We had run out of cash by this time, since the three ATMs we found on our way did NOT work. One almost kept our card. Anyway, we scraped together allllmost enough, and the entrance keeper took pity on us and let us all in. Phew!

To change things up from all the stairs, we decided to drag ourselves up by tree roots and stuff. Not the whole way. That would be unpleasant.

At the top! The view was superb. It was overcast and misty, and the hills were beautiful with the autumn colors.

Less beautiful were the little "reenactments" of Vlad the Impaler's famous torture/death by impaling. See the two poor fellas there, that you'd pass heading up the stairs? It was pretty grisly and icky, actually. Bran was quite disturbed, poor little guy, and kept asking questions about it. He was worried that somehow, in some way, that might happen to him :( He got over it fairly quickly, though.

We just tromped around the ruins. Old, deserted, crumbling castles are quite fun to explore.

The next morning we headed home, stopping in Bucharest for a couple of hours. It was a great, but quick, trip! We're so glad the fam came out, and not only because they gave us an excuse to go to Romania again! Like we needed an excuse... ;)