Searching for Dracula

Having just spent a long weekend in Bucharest, including a day trip to Transylvania, I thought I would share a few things that we learned during our brief encounter with Romania.

Here is the map of where we went on Sunday

Interesting facts:

Romanian Royal Family

1. The first King of Romania was German. King Carol I built Peleș Castle as his summer residence in the mountain area outside of Bucharest (Wallahia). It was the first castle in Europe with electricity (run using its own hydro power).

2. He built Peleșor castle within the same grounds as a wedding gift for his nephew Ferdinand, who eventually succeeded him.

3. Peleș castle is closed for cleaning in November :(

4. Queen Mary, married to Ferdinand sounded like an interesting lady. She liked to travel & spoke five languages. She even had a mini Maori meeting house in the garden where she would go to sit & do whatever it is that Queens do. Mary was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England.

5. King Ferdinand was struck from the German family tree when he changed allegiance during WWI to fight with the Soviets. I think this is when Romania got back Transylvania from the Austro-Hungarian empire...(??)

6. Communism was finally ended in 1989, unfortunately the Soviets didn't leave quietly, killing a lot of the demonstrators in Victory Square.

Peleșor Castle

Peleșor Castle

Peleș Castle

The Maori meeting house replica outside Peleșor Castle

Worlds highest cross at 2300m

View in Catpathian mountains

Dracula

1. He was definitely not a vampire

2. Vlad Tepes Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) lived around 600 years ago and was the ruler of Wallahia (southern area of what is now Romania). He was the son of Vlad Dracul- the name Dracul came from his military role in the Order of the Dragon, which became nicknamed by the people devil, or dracul, particularly after he had coins minted with the same symbol. Our tour guide said that Dracula came about because the 'a' means 'son of'.

3. He lived in Bucharest, not Transylvania. He fought against heavy invasion from the Ottomans, and used impalement as a means of torture. One version is that he made up exaggerated scary and evil stories about himself to scare off the invaders. He was eventually driven out of Bucharest to Transylvania where for some reason they accused him of conspiring with the Ottomans & he was arrested. His brother Radu the Handsome took over rule.

4. Transylvania means 'crossing the forest' as you have to cross the mountains from the old area of Wallahia. It is an area on a big plain encircled by the Carpathian Mountains.

5. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1890-something. He was an Irishman and had never set foot in Romania.

6. The Romanian government found that the Bran Castle is coincidentally a lot like the castle described in Stoker's book, and seeing an opportunity, turned it into a money making tourist attraction.

7. The castle itself dates from before Vlad Draculas time, and one theory is that the castle was rebuilt on the ruins of the original by peasants as a means of protection - as it sits on a hill between the border of the two regions.

8. Queen Mary took a liking to the castle, which was presumably in pretty bad nick, and in 1922 it was gifted to her, and she restored it.

Vlad Tepes Dracula

Spooky Bran Castle

Brasov

No interesting facts, just a pretty town we stopped in on the way back from Bran Castle.

Bucharest

1. Bucharest has second largest parliament building in the world.

2. In my opinion, it isn't as nice as Budapest.

3. Hard luck if you are a vegetarian

4. Museums are closed on Mondays 

5. During soviet times the leader was anti-religion and pulled down lots of churches. One church, conspicuously nestled amongst soulless apartment blocks, only remained because it was actually property of the Vatican.

6. It used to be called Little Paris, and even has a mini Arc de Triumph 

The Old Court - Vlad The Impaler's former fortress (statue of Vlad)

Church is the only intact part of the old court

A very ornate church in the old town

First of two dinners in a wine cellar - can't complain!

The local brew

Inside the upstairs part of Caru cu Bere

Parliament - >1000 rooms!

National Theatre. Just finished being restored to it's original shape after it was modified by the communist govt. Shaun thinks it looks like a kitchen sink.

Greece - Sunshine, Sailing, Swimming... Sensational!

This blog has taken slightly longer to produce than I intended; mostly due to bringing myself to undertake the daunting task of sorting through both mine and Shaun’s photos. From what must have been well over 1000 photos, I’ve managed to select 165 favourites. Obviously I can’t put them all in the blog, but the rest will go on Facebook.

Our trip to Greece was a year in the making. We booked our sailing trip through MedSailors at a travel expo in October 2014, and managed to rope in 8 other friends to fill the entire yacht (including Gemma, who came all the way from New Zealand to join us). After counting down every month since, September finally arrived. We flew to Athens and enjoyed an evening and a morning taking in the sights of the Acropolis, Parthenon and the old town before meeting the boat on Saturday afternoon.

Note the marble streets

There are no straight lines in this building, all the columns are thicker at the bottom. This was done on purpose so that it all looked straight from a distance!

Hard to imagine what this would have looked like in all its glory - apparently behind the intricate frieze was painted blue!

Temple of Zeus

Apparently the pieces of the columns were so well fitted together that the wood running through the centre of the column still smelled when they took them apart centuries later!

Our sailing trip takes us around the group of Islands closest to the mainland, not too far from Athens, called the Saronic. Here is the map.

The first night we stopped at Perdika. We watched a beautiful sunset and then had a feast of Greek Meze with seafood, salad and a lot of Ouzo! It turns out that the dark liquid in the orange cups on the table was not designed to be added to the ouzo, as someone suggested, as it turned out to be red wine! Note to self!

Our home for the next six nights

Captain Shaun

Following an incredibly rocky and stormy night, the sun was out and we set sail (or started motors, rather) for Ermioni. We stopped for a swim in the beautifully clear and warm water, and took turns at mastering the paddle board (and doing bombs off the side of the boat).

Tucked in a bay on the mainland, Ermioni was a quiet town with interesting ruins. The number of bars and restaurants along the water front suggested that the town was probably anything but quiet during peak tourist season. That night we were treated to a free dinner of the best souvlaki I’ve ever tasted, and then treated to entertainment from the crazy bar owner (dubbed Ron Papadopolous / Ron Jeremy) who’s favourite pastime was lighting his bar on fire and flinging napkins at all the patrons on the dance floor. The combination of napkins and fire was a disaster waiting to happen, so we retired to our boat (where at least the drinks were free).

Bar on fire!

The following day we went to Spetses, probably my favourite stop on the trip. The town was gorgeous and we hired scooters to explore the Island. Unfortunately this didn’t work out quite so well for Gemma, who gave up on scootering and spent the rest of the day exploring the town.

Around the island we made our way to check out a cave and several more beaches. Unfortunately the 4-wheeler that Shaun and I hired didn’t have the guts to get us both up some of the hills, so at one point I ended up squeezing on the back of Shae and Isaac’s scooter to save myself a long walk!

Inside the cave looking out to sea

After Spetses we spent two nights on the Island of Poros. We explored the town and made friends with a little dog we named Shaun Junior. We ended up running into this guy repeatedly for the next two days – he was like our little furry tour guide. I must say that he lost a few brownie points when he started bullying the locals cats though…

We had the most amazing meal here on the second night; the fresh tuna pate was second to none!

We also took a day trip to Hydra, which was supposed to be a stop along route, but as the bay is so exposed, we would have been in for a rather unpleasant night sleep. So instead we took the ferry across. I’m surprised we made it there alive given the unbearable petrol fumes.

Hydra was absolutely stunning. I had a delicious breakfast (ok, elevensies) of greek yoghurt and fruit. We then hiked up to the top of the hill behind the town to see the monastery. It was quite an impressive complex with absolutely stunning views. There was also a crazy dog who liked to chew on everything and everyone…

Titanic moment...

Clock tower

Shaun Jnr

View from the clock tower

Photo credit to Isaac

Chilling with Shaun Jr after we bumped into him at a night club!

Hydra

Hydra

Selfie inception

Dog ringing the bell

After Poros we headed to our final stop, Agristi. This island was a little bit run down and you could definitely tell that we were the last boats of the season, as most places were closed. Nevertheless, we all donned our togas for the MedSailors party and had a cracking good time. Thankfully the Irish guys on one of the other boats was a great singer and entertained us all before I had the chance to offer to rap Gangster’s Paradise.

Sailing crew. Our skipper Tom top left.

Back in Athens, we all met up for a meal out, and then said farewell to Gemma. The next day, having already seen the Acropolis, Shaun and I went to the Archaeological museum and expored the old town again before meeting everyone to celebrate our last night together by finishing off all the booze we didn’t manage to get through on the boat!

So many sculptures

The next day Shaun and I were up bright and early to catch the ferry to Santorini. Santorini is too beautiful for words! We arrived in the early afternoon and after checking into our apartment in the town of Imerovigili (kind of in the middle of the caldera rim), we went to Oia to watch the sun set. The next day we walked from our town back to Oia to have a better look at the town with it’s small cobbled streets and white buildings with blue domed roofs, and I treated myself to a rather bizarre foot treatment – with kissing fish (should have been called tickling fish – there was an eight year old there who handled it better than I did!). After lunch we hired an ATV and explored a bit more of the Island. We eventually made it to the Red Beach, which was absolutely stunning with cliffs of red scoria towering above the beach – even the sand was red.

That evening we enjoyed a delicious meal on the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the caldera. They had a wedding on earlier that day, and no one must have realized that they were still open, so we had the entire place to ourselves!

Our apartment building

Sunset in Oia

View over Oia

Being tickled to death by fish.... Turns out they weren't hungry enough to make my feet smooth

The next day we caught the ferry to Mykonos, where we relaxed on the beach all afternoon and took in some cocktails as well of course. The next day we explored the old town and its warren of streets of white and blue, before catching the ferry back to Athens in the evening and back to reality.....