Probably the Best City in the World

Probably the best City in the world. This is (no joke) the motto of Brasov, a town in the Transylvania region of Romania. It is on every umbrella at all the cafes and restaurants downtown. Seriously, I can just imagine someone coming up with that, "Well, we haven't been to every other city in the world, so we can't really say 'The best city in the world, period', but we've been a lot of places and none of them were as good as here, so we can say 'Probably the best city in the world' until someone proves us wrong . . .

Anyway, Brasov is a pretty cool place, but I don't know if I was there long enough to really be sure of it's supremacy over every other place that I've been (I'm particularly partial to Prague myself, but that's just me . . . ). The town center is full of beautiful buildings and there is a slightly out of place giant Hollywood-esque sign on the side of the hill (just in case you forgot where you were?).

We actually didn't spend too much time in Brasov itself (except Amanda who decided that castles were not her thing and had an adventure with a red scooter . . . ) rather we used it as a base to see a bit more of the region and the castles that this part of Romania is famous for. The fairy tale tourets of Bran Castle harken back to princesses as much as Dracula and I'm all in favor of the former. The only mention of the famous literary biter was in an upstairs room talking about how the castle actually had nothing to do with the historical Vlad Tepes or the fictional Dracula at all except that maybe Bram Stoker may have based his description of Dracula's castle on Bran. What the castle did have, however was a lot of information about the Romanian royal family (who had most recently used it as a country home) and some pretty great views.

The next day, on our way back to Bucarest, we stopped in Sinai and explored another fantastic castle- this one much more royal palace than quaint country home. It seemed that every room we went into was more lavishly decorated than the one before (and it's no wonder that they charged a whole lot extra to take pictures!). Based soley on this and the Parliment I would have to say that the Romanians are skilled interior decorators . . . they take their palaces seriously!

Leaving Romania, we had a truly unpleaseant train ride to Sofia (lights on all night, loud, cold, uncomfortable seats . . . ) and arrived in Bulgaria to a rainy day. We had planned to spend the day exploring Sofia, but after the bad train ride and the rain, we decided to get the earliest possible oppourtunity back to Macedonia. As we crossed this last border, I realized that in just under two weeks I had completly crossed through Bulgaria three times (and had the 6 passport stamps to prove it) without stopping for more than a quick meal. I guess I've technically been to Bulgaria now but I think I might have to go back as I didn't actually see a thing.