I love how Wynter thinks Dracula is the count from Sesame Street. yea..I taught her that. The whole time at the Bran Castle I’d say Dracula and the count and she’d repeat ” 1, 2 Ha Ha Ha”. Combining learning with funny! I love her, she’s my little cookie monster, and my bestest buddy.
We’re just starting to get over our jet lag, thank goodness. On our third day I looked at Colleen and very sincerely said, “this was a very bad idea!” I may even have yelled it out loud. It’s soooo much more work then when we left for Asia when Wynter was small. Our backpacks are now four wheeled and some people call them luggage, but we really had no choice. We’re traveling in winter/spring and through mountains but by the time we fly home from Paris it’ll be full on spring and quite warm. So we really had to make the tough choice to pack for 2 seasons, for four people and pack enough fun things for everyone. It’s been really hard so far but I know we’ll find a groove very soon and that these experiences will be ones that we remember for ever. right?haha
Arriving in Brasov was a breath of fresh air, finally the sun has peaked out and it was our first two days of weather above zero. I know it’s nothing like friends and family at home are dealing with, but as tourists and wanting to explore it makes the days long when everyone is cold…and by everyone I mean Wynter and Keir. The poor little ones are such troopers, not to mention Colleen the sherpa who has been lugging ole potato sack around. He’s not much help at all!haha.
And then there’s Wynter, she’s so full of energy and what we’ve learned early in this trip is that she needs space and freedom to run and play. Of course we knew that before hand but we are experiencing first hand now. So renting rooms from hotels has turned to Bed and Breakfasts and trying to get small apartements. It’s made a dramatic difference in spirits!
So in the last blog I mentioned that we had a screw-up with expedia. Well it was a real mess-up, nothing too dramatic but a mess up. What had happened is that I found a room in a home via tripadvisor and when I booked the room and arrived at the address the confirmation gave us, we found out it was a different place with a different owners information. It was a nice place, and perfect for us but not the one we choose so it sort of messed with us as we expected one thing and got another. The location was better but the room was pretty dark…oh well.
Brasov. Aside from the Hollywood style sign with Brasov in the hills above the historic center this couldn’t be much cooler. The old town is just stunning. A great big square with the wonderful black church on one end and a long pedestrian street leading to a park down the other. It may seem silly to say but it was so “european”. It’s exactly what we expected to see on this trip. We came to this town, our first stop in Transyvania was about 4 hours by train from Bucharest and is most famous for it’s proximity to Bran and the Bran Castle. Dracula’s famous castle is what we came to see, I’ve always wanted to pretend and imagine myself in each room, and walking up the cobblestone path to the entrance. Of course Vlad Tepes, or Dracula himself only stayed a few weeks in the hilltop manour but it still had this great and ominous feel. Of course Batdude and myself wore our Batman t’s, just incase there was a dress code. And Wynter yelled a lot and acted like she was a vampire so we were cool. It was of course a little touristy and as we left we stopped and laughed at a few of the dracula t’shirt stalls. My personal favorite shirt was ” Transylvania Sucks” with a picture of Dracula on it, nice.
After we left Bran Castle we made a quick stop at Rasnov fortress. It’s this fantastic medieval fortress atop the hills. The highlight was the tractor ride up which Wynter often referred to as Grampa Al’s.
We had a great stay and really loved our experience here but now it’s off to Sighisoara, the town were Dracula spent his first and formative blood sucking years.
Backpacking through Europe with Children from Carey Nash on Vimeo.
http://www.careynash.com
A two month trip with two children as we backpacked through Eastern and Western Europe.
