Transylvania area

19/20 November

In and out of freezing fog all morning mostly on small country roads with little traffic. We spotted more bird life, Goldfinch, Bullfinch, Herons, Pheasants & all the time buzzards perched on telegraph poles. Following the signs to various Saxon villages with fortified castles & churches sometimes led us up some quite rough tracks which often ended in a dead end unless you have a horse & cart. 

Our destination was Sighisoara, especially the old town with it's medieval guild towers perched on the hill & the birth place of Vlad Tepes (the Impaler) apparently the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula. 

A great place to wander around the small cobbled streets looking at the colourful painted buildings & to try out some cafes. 

Also we were lucky there is a very central open all year camping which was very easy to find as it was well signposted & you are very close to town so ideal for a meal out for the evening. 

Camping Aquarius seems to be a big swimming pool site for the summer & everything was shut except the Pension reception. A wizened old lady, possibly from the time of count Dracula, seemed to be the only person in charge but she competently photocopied our passports & conveyed that we needed to pay 40 lei for the night. It was fine for us, we were put in a gated parking space but with a key for our own toilets & hot showers. 

Their business card was promoting Free Wireless Access Areas but when I asked her about this she replies quite forcefully No! Getting back in the van & trying the laptop gave me full strength signal Camping Aquarius unprotected network! I guess the internet may have passed her by or she considers it an instrument of the Devil!

We had interesting dining in a hostel restaurant which offered vegetarian meals but when coming to order only one of the dishes was available, also no White wine was available and they only had one glass of Red wine left. Each dish & course came out separately, maybe they only had one ring to cook on & in the middle of it all some electricians arrived to sort out a problem which to us seemed to be that everytime they tried to play an Elton John track a fuse kept blowing, should have tried some better music I felt! At one point the whole place was left in darkness apart from the one T-light candle on our table (there were no other diners) Anyway it was quite entertaining & made a change from van dining.

Next day we headed for Dracula territory but Bran castle didn't sound appealing, so drove out through the ski resort area in the forested hills between Rasnov & Brasov. It was around 800m altitude as evening was approaching the roads were getting quite a frosty look to them. We decided wild camping here would be pretty cold & didn't fancy dodgy roads in the morning. We knew there was Camping Darste on the edge of Brasov but thought it would be shut and we would have to park up somewhere in the dark. When we came across it we saw it had a Motel & Restaurant attached which were open & after declining their offer of a Motel room we asked if we could just stop in one of the parking spaces outside the camping gates. The receptionist looked a bit nonplussed, but shrugged and agreed, probably not realising that even small motorhomes can be totally self contained for a few nights without campsite facilities.