Tuesday, July 3, 2007
A random suggestion by a random train traveling encounter brought me to the charming town of Brasov. Located in the center of Romania, in the region of Transylvania, it is nestled in the surrounding Carpathian Mountains. It is one of Romania’s larger cities at just under a quarter of a million people, but you wouldn’t know it walking through the picturesque streets of old town or across the Piata Sfatutuli (Council Square). The surrounding landscape is beautiful and even the bold white-lettered-Hollywood-copycat-sign, which of course instead reads BRASOV instead of Hollywood, grows on you after awhile as a quaint oddity. The town boasts an impressive array of gothic, renaissance, and baroque architecture including the Black Church, Romania’s largest gothic church. An impressive building from the outside though I found the rafters strewn with Turkish rugs (albeit an impressive collection) a rather odd way of decorating a church.
I settled into the Kismet hostel when I arrived Sunday night, thankful for the wireless internet connection, and the chance to catch up on some work. The transition in and out of New York this year took a greater toll on me than I anticipated and so I am valiantly trying to figure out how to balance working on the road doing research with traveling and writing. I really wish the gods above had given us 36 hour days instead of the measly 24 hour ones we must make do with.
Monday morning I set off with a group of others from the hostel to visit Rasnov Fortress and Bran Castle. Rasnov Fortress sits high above the town of Rasnov (duh) on a rocky hilltop. It was one of several fortresses on Bran Pass, the trade route that connected Wallachia with Transylvania. Because it was also intended as a refuge during sieges, it is structured more like a village than other fortresses typical for the area. It is a remarkable construction with its walls and streets that wind ever upward. But it was its perch in the midst of nature with a view of the plains below stretching to the mountains that I found most impressive. It boasts an interesting little museum, a couple over-priced tourist shops, and a 143 meter well that legend claims two Turkish prisoners spent 17 years digging on the promise of their freedom when they were finished. They were indeed freed, of this world anyway.
From Rasnov (which by the way also sports a white-block-Hollywood-copycat sign on the side of a hill), we headed to Bran Castle, dubbed Dracula’s Castle thanks not to history but to literature. Stoker allegedly used Bran Castle as a model for Dracula’s castle in his book. Subsequently, Bran Castle was used to film several Dracula movies and thus the connection was created. In actuality there is no historical evidence that Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure on whom Dracula is based, spent more than one night there. In 1920 it was given to Queen Maria of Great Romania who lived there for 27 years, after which it was opened as a museum. It is more a testament to royal heritage with its impressive furniture and other adornments than the spooky castle one might expect. As such, it is really quite lovely with its white washed walls and dark wood trim. Interestingly the castle itself makes not one mention of Dracula on the information boards or in the brochures. Step into the market below, however, and you can find all the tacky vampire paraphernalia a Buffy lover could want. The castle itself is actually for sale right now for a cool 145 million dollars. Let’s hope no Dracula fanatic billionaire buys it and turns it into a haunted house…
We returned in the late afternoon and I took a catnap before heading out to wander Brasov ‘old town center’ in search of food. The Council Square reminded me a great deal of the main square in Tallin, Estonia, though Brasov’s is much larger. Legend claims it was to this very square that the Pied Piper led the lost children of Hamelin when he was cheated by the Burghers after ridding their city of rats. A funny fact since it may also have been the Pied Piper who led me here, in a sense. Transylvania was one of the few places that had lured me as a young girl. I thought little of the world beyond our American shores until I was a woman with my own children, but I held from a tender age a distant memory of a dream of Transylvania. I cannot remember for sure where this yearning came from, though it was surely a book. I will have to peruse my childhood library, which I still have amongst the dozen boxes of books that make up most of my worldly possessions, to see which one. But the Pied Piper was one of my favorite childhood characters so perhaps it was my desire to follow the sound of his flute that created my dream of walking the hills of Transylvania long ago.
The Old Town Hall built in 1420 stands guard with its solitary clock tower at the edge of the pave stone square which is bordered by brightly colored buildings with ornately decorated windows. A modern style fountain sits between the clock tower and the cafes, where people sit or stretch out on its many leveled steps or dip warm feet in the cool water. The fountain adds a peaceful feel to the square, filling the air with the tranquil sound of water and reflecting bright prisms of light from the sun setting beyond the hills. Benches and lampposts and flower boxes make the big open space cozy and inviting to lovers and readers and those who just wanted to sit for awhile, while sidewalk cafes on the edges offered easy wicker chairs and umbrella covered tables for ice-cream treats or heavier fare.
I chose the inviting beer garden with its heavy oak picnic tables and benches and settled in for something to eat and some writing. Having not eaten in a couple days, I ordered the biggest plate in the biggest picture I saw - a wooden platter with three carved holes, one of which held a hock of ham, the other potatoes with parsley, and the third, pickles, prepared like a vegetable sides dish. They were actually quite good. I drank my Ursus beer (funny that I enjoy beer when I travel but never back in the states) and watched the sun set over the square as I worked on the last of the articles for Bulgaria.
A walk through the town with a happy, full tummy revealed a bustling pedestrian walkway crowned with shops and cafes in buildings with alternating pastel colors and ornate architectural flourishes adorning the windows and roof lines above. Several of the town’s original seven bastions still stand, though they are so incorporated into the framework of the city they can be easy to miss. The Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church is stunning, though the cemetery in front of it on a still quiet night seems more befitting a Dracula movie than did Bran Castle on a bustling tourist-filled day!
Tuesday I got up early and headed to Sinaia for a tour of Peles Castle, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful castles in all of Europe. Sinaia itself is a renowned mountain spa resort and has that sort of force-fed peacefulness of the rich around it. The buildings are mammoth and intriguing in their architecture styles, beautiful jewels set in the stunning mountain scenery. I stopped first by the monastery for which the town gets its name. It was built in 1695 built by a Romanian after he returned from Mt. Sinai and is still a functioning monastery to this day. From there I wound my way up the hill past the artisan market filled with crafts of the region. The laces and linens adorning many of the booths were exquisite, bringing images to mind of a home with curtains blowing lightly in the wind and lovely ceramics atop lace covered tables with tea settings for two.
The castle comes into view slowly, only revealing its full grandeur when you are actually standing at its center on the road below. It is an impressive structure indeed. I particularly loved the manicured gardens with their statues looking out over the valley to the mountains beyond. The rooms inside the castle were named and decorated for great cities or countries – The Venetian and Florentine Rooms, the Spanish dining room, the Turkish sitting room (one of my favorites), and of course the French parlor. The armory was one of the most impressive I’ve seen, replete with a full suit of armor for knight and horse and an amazing array of firearms, swords, knives, and other weapons. The oriental weapon collection in the smaller armory was stunning. The music room boasted a teak table and chairs set that was carved by one family over three generations. As an American, it is hard to imagine one generation holding a single job for life much less three! The last room of the tour, an art-nouveau theatre was replete with custom made paintings by Gustav Klimt, one of my favorite artists. I had always liked his work, which is commercial fodder all over the states, well enough, but standing before his actual paintings in Vienna is an awe-inspiring experience. It was a special treat to see lesser known pieces of his work here in the hills of Romania.
The castle was striking in its luxuriant devotion to art and beauty but sometimes I leave those places wondering if we couldn’t be using money for better things, like feeding people. Though I guess if you pay a family for three generations to carve a table you are feeding them. Still the opulence is sometimes a bit lost on me.
It was a lovely walk back down through the town but a tiring, slow train ride back to Brasov and a long night of work that followed. Wednesday morning I took one last stroll through the town before heading to the train station and onward to Sibiu, happy to have taken up that random suggestion from a random train encounter.
Comments