Sunday, September 22, 2019: Brasov

This has been a full day. Amazingly, not all of it, but much of it went according to plan.

We had hoped to get out of the flat and on the road by 7:00 am so that we could get to the King Carol's Peleș  Castle just before it opened at 9:15 am to avoid the anticipated crowds. We did pretty well, closing the door of the flat for the last time at 7:30 am. The elevator was still busted so I carried my luggage down the eight stories to the car. There were several parking spots now open on the street so I was able to advance the car to a spot closer to our apartment.

Then it was time to take Maria's two 32 kg suite cases down. I was doing pretty well, taking one flight at a time with pauses in between. About half way down, it dawned on me that the issue with the elevator was that it could not quite "reach" the top floor and therefore the door would not open at the top floor (our floor). So, I decided to "call" the elevator to the third floor where I was currently. It came, I loaded the suite cases on board and successfully traveled down to the lobby. Once out of the building, having deposited the keys in the lock box and closed the street door, I remembered that I had left my pair of prescription glasses in the flat. Oh, well, I've got a spare.

We climbed into the car and took off. Being early on a Sunday morning, there was very little traffic in downtown Bucharest. With Maria navigating, we had no problems getting out of town. For some reason, we were thinking the drive to the Peleș Castle was going to be a little over an hour. It turned out to be a two hour drive, plus we stopped at a McDonald's (yeah, they are everywhere in Romania) in Ploieşti for a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. So, we arrived at the castle around 10:00 am. The crowds were already heavy.

We had to park at the bottom of the hill and walk up, about a mile. It was a beautiful walk, cool forests with a stream rushing by.

Peleș Castle

 There are actually two castles very close together. The Peleș Castle is the one that attracts most of the attention.

The "line" to enter the castle was really a mob gathering. Maria finally ascertained that we first needed to buy an entry ticket before we could stand in the line to enter. I found the ticket window and bought two tickets (I was able to buy a senior ticket at half price). Then we stood in line for the next hour waiting to get in. We took some pictures of the courtyard.

After about an hour, I figured we still had about 30 minutes yet to wait. We both had been very patient with the wait, but around that time, in chatting, we realized that we thought the other one had been very anxious to see the inside of the castle. In fact, we both would have been satisfied with just observing the exterior. Oh well, we had been waiting for an hour and had just a little for wait ahead. That's when I reached into my pocket to discover I had lost one of the entry tickets. It was the full price adult ticket that I had lost, we still had the senior ticket. We searched all my pockets to no avail. It was gone. We discussed who would use the final ticket and finally decided to just leave. So, we did not see the inside of the castle.

We walked up to the other castle, Pelișor Castle. Of course, there were no crowds up there.

Pelișor Castle

We stopped at the hotel at the base on the hill to have lunch. It was the Romanian equivalent to a Brazilian steakhouse. They brought out flights of various meats, sausage, poultry, etc. All you could eat!

We drove on into Brasov and easily found our way to our next Airbnb. The address was Strada Ioan Barac 7, Brașov, Județul Brașov, Romania. It is on the second floor (of course) and has two bedrooms and two baths. No AC, but it isn't needed. The one thing it didn't have, which I missed, was a microwave. It will be more complicated to make my popcorn now.

Our rental at the apartment complex in Brasov

The Brasov apartment complex

 Maria had booked a short three hours Brasov Beer & History Tour for this evening, starting at 6:30 pm. After letting Maria rest for a few hours, about 5:00 pm we started to get ready for the tour. There was nothing to eat in the apartment so we decided to go to where the tour was to originate, at the City Hall, and find something to nibble on until the tour began. Maria called a Uber. It took 30 minutes and $3.00 to get across the city to the City Hall. We found the Taverna Sarbului across the street from the City Hall.

We were the only customers in the place. We did not get our order place until 6:15 pm. We ordered a platter of cheese and prosciutto. That came out very quickly. It was the cheese pie that we ordered that did not permit us to leave until 6:45 pm. Maria sent a message to the tour guide telling her we were running late and asked if we could meet up with the group somewhere. She never got a response and by the time we got across the street to the City Hall, the group had departed. No problem, they apparently have this same tour every day so we booked it again from tomorrow evening and sat at the City Hall and ate one of the two cheese pies (they were huge). We saved the second one for later.

Baked Cheese Pie

After the cheese pie, we decided to wander back to the area where we found the cheese pie. This was a pedestrian only street lined with shops, restaurants and bars. Maria noticed a small "hole in the wall" joint named The Drake Pub (The Drake Pub). The theme of the pub was Chicago gangsters of the 20's. The owner later told us the name of the pub was inspired by the old Chicago Drake Hotel, famous back in the gang era. We looked it up and found the hotel is still there, now owned by Hilton. Maria and I decided we needed to visit it.

The owners were having a family party, otherwise there were no customers. We sat at the bar and one of the Owners, Adriana, came over to attend us. We arrived around 7:00 pm and did not leave until around 10:00 pm. During that time, we had, as best I can remember, a lot of fun with Adriana experimenting with drinks for us. Maria suggested to Adriana a new drink. One of Maria's "go to" drinks is the Moscow Mule, which is simply vodka, lime juice and ginger beer. Unfortunately, Romania does not seem to have experience with ginger beer. In fact, Adriana had never heard of it. Not to be deterred, Adrian improvised by liquefying a finger of fresh ginger along with vodka, fresh lime and a pinch of brown sugar. To this, she added Sprite. Maria was so impressed, she dubbed it the Romanian Mule.

Over the next couple of hours, we talked philosophy and politics with Adriana. I asked Adriana to marry me at least three times. She said "no" just as many times. Oh well! We had a very nice evening and tried a lot of new drinks. Maria was introduced to cognac, and seemed to enjoy it. She was much less impressed with Scotch. Adriana's mother made us some hors d'oeuvres, eggplant puree on toast with olives. It was delicious. I found that adding an anchovy fillet really spiced it up. Strange that no one else agreed with me!

Adriana

I liked this Scotch

The Romanian Mule taste test...a keeper!!

Adriana suggested that when we visit Bran Castle tomorrow, we should have lunch at the D.O.R. restaurant. She said they offer only "organic" meals and she especially liked their deer rib eye steak.

When it was obviously time to call it a night, we hailed another Uber which took us back to the flat ($3.5 this time),

 If we are physically capable to do so, our plan for Monday is to drive over the the Bran Castle, home of the Dracula story.