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... ;)

Transylvania

Ahhh...Transylvania. (I know it's been a while since we've posted. What can I say...our internet STINKS. I think we found a solution, though...we'll see...) Anyway, we went to Romania last weekend and had a great time. We were mainly on a Dracula kick, so Castle Bran was top on the list. Castle Bran is what's known as the "Dracula Castle," but really he never lived there. Just stopped by once or maybe twice in the 15th century, but it has the look down and so it's totally "sold" as Dracula's castle. Vlad Tepes, "Dracula", was an interesting and cruel fellow. Though he seemed to have some issues from things that happened to him in his youth as a prisoner of the Turks. If you want to know more about him, you can go here. Heh. Our Lonely Planet guidebook was pretty hung up on his mustache. Talked about it quite often...

Of course we had to get them "Castle Bran" t-shirts. Nuala kept asking where her castle was...so if anyone knows of a Castle Nuala, please, fill us in!

Bran with Sting, Frodo's sword from Lord of the Rings. Just the right size! and nice and sharp, too. Perfect. At this B&B, on the border of Bulgaria and Romania, Nuala did us the honor of dropping her mug of hot chocolate on the floor, smashing it to bits. Very cool.

Castle Bran from down below in the town.

...just 'cause it has Bran's name again...

Going up into the castle. I like how it's built on a big ol' rock. Bran's holding a little Dracula Bear with a travel bug. Travel bugs are a geocaching thing...little bar codes on a dog tag that move from one cache to another all around the US or the world or wherever. This one had a goal to get to Transylvania, and the dream has been realized.

Looking down at the castle courtyard. Well, only Nuala is, I guess. I'm looking at the camara, and Bran is looking for snacks. That's our Bran.

The courtyard behind N. Apparently there's a series of hidden passages under there. Oh yeah! Romanian is quite different from Spanish, but is still a Latin-based language, unlike Bulgarian and all the other languages surrounding Romania. I got excited when a man on the steep, winding staircase offered to help me by saying "Ayuda?" (probably spelled totally differently in Romanian) in reference to me having to carry Nuala down the stairs. I can't remember why...she wouldn't walk and there was a big line...Anyway, I totally thought he was speaking Spanish and was so excited to be able to communicate again that I started jabbering away at him in Spanish. Finally I remembered that Romanian is somewhat similar to Spanish as he shook his head in confusion. It was kinda funny. I really need to start learning Bulgarian. Except I'll be gone for 3 months come December and will probably forget everything. Hmmm...what to do, what to do... But I do miss being able to actually talk to people.

The kiddos loved seeing the armor, etc. There was a ladies' dress, too, that N really liked.

While I was talking to a nice Romanian/Bulgarian couple, Z ditched me and left with the tykes to find the geocache. Up a big hill, with two little rascals. After the couple left, I looked around and realized I was alone and headed up after them. Alas, no luck. There were many paths and they were apparently out of earshot. I couldn't find them and headed back down to park myself on a bench and wait. Poor me.

The view from the cache at the top of the hill (which I didn't see in real life, since I was abandoned down below. I'm not bitter. Really.)

"The Return." This is how my strapping young (ish ;) husband came back. Apparently they both got tired. Carrying them back made Z tired. I'm just glad they made it down the hill in one piece like that...They picked a big, dirty Chester Cheetah (the Cheetos cheetah) stuffed animal with a travel bug out of the cache. It's seriously gross looking. Guess we better go geocaching again soon and ditch that sucker!

Then we went to Dracula's hometown, Sighisoara. We got there in the evening, and were so ready to head to our little homestay. We were staying in the middle of the city, in the citadel which is inside the still-standing old-town walls. Unfortunately, we got to the street to drive up and into the citadel and whaddaya know? Closed to traffic. Because they were TEARING UP and REPAVING the ENTIRE old town. So we park at the bottom of the hill (because of course the citadel's on the hill) and trudge up the endless stairs to find our B&B in the darkening evening. Luckily it was really close, but still. Later Z went back down all the steps (I tried counting them in my head on our last trip down and Bran kept distracting me -- the nerve! -- but it was close to 100) and lugged the suitcase up. Did I mention how strapping and young (ish) he is?

Even with construction crews and many, many machines everywhere, the city was still very fun to look at. I'm pretty sure all the machines actually made it MORE interesting for N&B.

The house where little Dracula entered the world and took his first little baby steps. I think he lived here until he was 4 or so.

One of our favorite areas was this graveyard on the side of the hill. Our friend, Kelly, tipped us off to it, and it was really a great place. Interesting graves, beautiful trees sporting their fall foliage, lots of chestnuts on the ground that quickly found their way into little pockets. And Z's. He filled his, too. We're gonna roast them. I guess we should do that soon. But the graveyard was very nice and atmospheric. And peaceful.

Up in a tower, looking over the town (not the citadel part) of Sighisoara.

Nuala. And lots of leaves.

The couple we stayed with, Maria and John, were super hospitable. They loved Bran and Nuala, even after the two of them climbed up on their couch, shoes and all, the very first time we walked into their kitchen. Now, I don't think that would have been a problem, except what I took to be some sort of couch covering with very large polka dots decorating it, was in fact big sheet circles of freshly pressed pasta laid out. They were very forgiving and gracious, though, as they smushed some of the torn sheets back together. John was also making his own brandy and wine while we were there. It was pretty interesting to see, but kinda stinky. Their grapes were soooo delicious. Seriously, I mentioned to Z that they were the best grapes I'd ever had, and I've had a lot of grapes in my life. Okay, mostly from grocery stores, but these almost didn't even TASTE like grapes. They were small and sweet and stained the tongue purple almost immediately. So, so good. Anyway, N&B loved "helping" sweep and feed/water the chickens, etc. at their house. It was a lot of fun for them.

Here they are taking water to the chickens.

We headed to the little town of Biertan as a day-trip from Sighisoara. It's in what's known as "Saxon Land," and was a typical little Saxon town with a big fortified church. No one was at the church when we got there, so we had the whole place to ourselves to wander about. Actually, we weren't able to go inside, but we didn't really mind, the grounds were plenty interesting.

The views into the town/countryside from the church walls were gorgeous. The pics don't do it justice. It was misty, and the sun was getting ready to set...cows and pigs were making their cow and pig noises. We really enjoyed that little outing.

On our way back home, we took the scenic route through the Southern Carpathian Mountains, also known as the Transylvanian Alps. The road, the Transfagarasan Road (okay, there are little tails and accent-mark-esque things on several of those letters, and on one of the s's in "Sighisoara", but I'm not as cool as Z and don't have the patience to find or the brilliance to already know how to type Romanian letters...) was luckily still open (usually closed from sometime in October until April due to weather) and it was beautiful! And long.

We stopped a little ways up at a place with a cable car, and waterfall, etc. but the cable car for some unknown reason wasn't running. Oh well! Plenty to do anyway!

...Like throw rocks into freezing water for 1/2 an hour. Gotta love two-year-olds. Of course, they both wanted to get IN the water...I barely could keep Nuala in her shoes. Bran also had fun "fishing" with a nice, slimy stick. Then we ate at the hotel restaurant by the cable car and enjoyed the least-friendly waitstaff ever. It was almost amusing how unfriendly they were. And they weren't MEAN, they were just very, very, very...long-faced? Like every single one of them had a favorite dog that had died that very morning AND their significant other broke up with them on the phone. No, via email. NO...via their Facebook wall. It was just different. Though the chicken cordon bleu was quite tasty...

Pretty fall colors. Much more vivid in real life, of course. It was so lovely! We had beautiful weather the whole time. We actually kinda wanted gloomy weather; just makes the whole Transylvania trip more...Dracula-y, ya know? But it was beautiful.

This is Vlad's (Dracula) real castle. Built by Turkish prisoners. We didn't go up to it. The 1400+ steps were a slight discouragement. That+napping children+pregnant me = not the most enticing trek. Maybe next time. But it looked cool perched up on the hill.

And the end! The ass's end! Or, I guess, the ass's ... (That was terrible! My mother made me say that! She has great influence in my life.) But yes. Cute little guy, huh? We had fun, made memories, the kiddos can practically quote the first season of She-Ra thanks to the handy-dandy Explorer DVD player (they didn't quite appreciate the scenery as much as Z and I did), and we all made it back in one piece...no bite marks! A good trip.